Use of improved design and boosted-discharge hollow-cathode lamps for atomic absorption spectrometry

Abstract

In spite of the near universal acceptance of the hollow-cathode lamp (HCL) as the source for atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS), some limitations are still apparent in terms of brightness and spectral purity for particular elements.

Lack of intensity of the ground-state lines used for sensitive AAS measurements may affect the detection limit if it degrades the signal to noise ratio significantly, while the generation of nearby non-absorbing lines will cause loss of sensitivity and non-linearity of the calibration function.

This work describes a comparison of a recently developed boosted-discharge hollow-cathode lamp (BD-HCL) and one of the latest types of HCL, with normally used lamps, as sources for the flame AAS measurement of arsenic, lead and tin, together with some briefer measurements for nickel. Some advantages are found in terms of detection limit, sensitivity and linear range, for the newer lamps.