Effects of inert gas atmospheres on the intensity of atomic emission from a carbon furnace atomiser

Abstract

Investigations have shown that atomic emission intensities are dependent on the diffusive and thermal conductivity properties of the furnace purge gas and that the differences in emission signals for a particular species in argon, nitrogen, helium and krypton arise mainly through variations in the atom vapour concentration rather than from changes in excitation conditions. Argon is identified as the most suitable gas for routine use in furnace atomic-emission spectrometry, and is confirmed as the most suitable gas for atomic-absorption measurements.

Local thermal equilibrium has been established from tube-wall and vapour-phase temperature measurements, which suggest that there is no appreciable lag of the vapour temperature behind that of the tube wall during the atomisation procedure.