Cadmium resonance lamps

Resonance Lamp.—Such lamps (sometimes called low pressure lamps) are often used as line sources in photochemical studies. These usually contain a small amount of a metal vapor (e.g., mercury, cadmium, zinc, etc.) and several mm pressure of a rare gas. They operate at relatively low current (ca. 100 ma.) and high voltages (several thousand volts). This is in contrast to a typical medium pressure lamp which may operate off a 110-220 v. power supply delivering ca. 3-5 amp. The most common example in photochemistry is the mercury resonance lamp which has strong emission of the unreversed resonance lines at 2537 A. and 1849 A. (ca. 90% or more of the total) along with other, much weaker lines ( resonance lines are those which appear both in absorption and emission). There is little continuum. Sources of this type are widely used for photosensitized reactions. 

Resonance lamps of the alkali metals, zinc and cadmium have been constructed. Laidler shows how Hg, Zn and Cd lamps may be put to very good use to place limits on bond energies and to determine the mechanisms of some photo-sensitised reactions. However, none of these lamps has been used extensively and have limited (or no) photochemical use. 

In contrast to the low-pressure lamps (1—130 Pa) which primarily emit at the resonance line at A = 254nm, high-pressure lamps (lO —10 Pa) also produce numerous bands in the UV and VIS regions (Fig. 16). Table 3 lists the emission lines and the relative spectral energies of the most important mercury lamps (see also [44]). The addition of cadmium to a mercury vapor lamp increases the numbei of emission lines particularly in the visible region of the spectrum [45] so that it i. also possible to work at A = 326, 468, 480, 509 and 644 nm [46]. 

EDLs are very intense, stable emission sources. They provide better detection limits than HCLs for those elements that are intensity-limited either because they are volatile or because their primary resonance lines are in the low-UV region. Some elements like As, Se, and Cd suffer from both problems. For these types of elements, the use of an EDL can result in a limit of detection that is two to three times lower than that obtained with an HCL. EDLs are available for many elements, including antimony, arsenic, bismuth, cadmium, germanium, lead, mercury, phosphorus, selenium, thallium, tin, and zinc. Older EDLs required a separate power supply to operate the lamp. Modern systems are self-contained. EDL lamps cost slightly more than the comparable HCL. 

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