Atomic emission spectroscopy representative methods

Many analytical techniques now require very small sample sizes, for example, Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and ICP-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) methods may utilise only 0.10-0.5 g of powder which must of course be representative of the original sample. Unless the collected sample is small and finely divided, representivity at this small sample size can only be achieved by fine milling the sub-samples of the coarse powder. 

Ion chromatography plays a very important role in hyphenated techniques used in species analysis. Coupling techniques represent the link of ion chromatography systems with an independent analytical detection method, usually spectroscopic (AAS-Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy, ICP-AES-lnductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy, ICP-MS-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry ). 

The most common type of emission spectrometer in use today (inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy, or ICP-OES) atomizes a sample by passing an electric current into a gas plasma that contains the sample. In these optical emission methods, the sample is heated to high temperature. At this temperature the individual elements glow with their representative colors, e.g., red for potassium, yellow for sodium. The light from the sample is focused on a monochrometer to select a wavelength appropriate for the element of interest. That light at the correct wavelength is focused on a detector that measures its intensity (Fig. 4.8). 

Sensing methods capable of quantifying these trace elements at low levels include atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), inductively coupled plasma (ICP) combined with atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) or inductively coupled plasma with mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The latter technique represents a powerful... 

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