Plasma sources background corrections

Zeeman background correction. Continuum source (D2) may be applied for plasma/ serum matrices... 

Minimizing Spectral Interferences The most important spectral interference is a continuous source of background emission from the flame or plasma and emission bands from molecular species. This background emission is particularly severe for flames in which the temperature is insufficient to break down refractory compounds, such as oxides and hydroxides. Background corrections for flame emission are made by scanning over the emission line and drawing a baseline (Figure 10.51). Because the temperature of a plasma is... 

A major difficulty encountered with atomic absorption techniques is the presence of incompletely absorbed background emission from the source and scattered light from the optical system. As the background becomes more intense relative to the absorption of the analyte, the precision of the measurement decreases dramatically. For this reason, several background correction techniques have been implemented. A commonly used method is the method of proximity, which was discussed in relation to inductively coupled plasma spectroscopy. 

A significant effort was necessary to obtain accurate results for selenium in blood, plasma, and erythrocytes [27]. Iron causes a spectral interference at the selenium line at 196 nm if a continuum source background corrector is used, causing erroneous results particularly in blood and erythrocytes. Zeeman effect background correction is therefore mandatory for the determination of selenium in clinical samples. In addition, some of the previously recommended chemical modifiers were found to stabilize the different selenium species differently, so that some of them may be lost in the pyrolysis stage. A mixture of palladium and magnesium nitrates was found to solve the problem and prevent any preatomization losses [28]. 

Nitrous oxide - acetylene flame (AAS) Sensitivity is concentration (or mass) yielding 1 % absorption (0.0044 absorbance units) With background correction Furnace AAS concentration values are based on cuvette capacity of 100 pi Requires use of red-sensitive photo multiplier tube ICP Inductively coupled plasma Source Author s own files ... 

Simple procedures that require only a dilution of serum or urine have been reported by Schattenkirchner and Grobenski [95], and by Ward et al. [96]. The former diluted samples of sera 1 + 4 with 0.1% Triton X 100 and urine samples 1 + 9 with 0.01 M HC1 and the latter used a 1 + 9 dilution of serum in water. In both cases calibration was by standard additions to compensate for the considerable matrix interferences. Ward et al. [96] demonstrated an excellent correlation (r = 0.98) between neutron activation analysis (NAA) and ETA—AAS analysis of the total plasma Au and albumin bound Au, which contains up to 90% of the total. There was however, a bias towards higher values (10%) by NAA. This difference did not appear to be pre-atomisation losses during ETA—AAS, the recoveries of added Au ranged from 90—105%, nor over-correction by continuum source background corrector. 

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