FAILURE DETECTION OF SAMPLE INTRODUCTION SYSTEMS

A method of operating a sample introduction system (200) of an inductively coupled plasma analytical instrument (300), the method comprising applying a trained classifier to instrument data, obtained from the analytical instrument, during operation of the analytical instrument, to detect whether the sample introduction system (200) is operating in a normal state or in a failure state. The method further comprises activating an error procedure in the event that the sample introduction system (200) is operating in a failure state. The instrument data comprises signal data obtained from an analytical measurement made by the analytical instrument (300). The trained classifier is trained using a training data set comprising instrument data corresponding to the normal state of the sample introduction system (200).