Correction of characteristic mass in Zeeman graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry

• Published in: Spectrochimica acta. Part B: Atomic spectroscopy 1995-11, Vol.50 (13), p.1621-1636
• Main Authors: L'vov, B.V., Polzik, L.K., Fedorov, P.N., Novichikhin, A.V., Borodin, A.V.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Characteristic mass correction; Electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry; Lamp spectra; Line absorption; Non-absorbable radiation
• ISSN: 0584-8547; 1873-3565
• DOI: 10.1016/0584-8547(95)01346-6

A systematic study has been made of the effect of hollow-cathode lamp current and slit width (SW) of the 4100ZL spectrometer on characteristic mass m 0, Zeeman sensitivity ratio R, and roll-over absorbance A r, for nine elements: Au, Bi, Cd, Co, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb and Tl. The lamp spectra near the recommended analytical lines have been investigated for these elements. The data obtained have been combined with a theoretical analysis to show that the self-absorption of the analytical lines observed with increasing current and the rise of non-absorbable radiation with increasing SW affect m 0 and the A r and R parameters differently. It is shown that a separate correction requiring additional narrow-slit measurement of the A r parameter is necessary to take into account the SW effect on m 0. A separate-correction method built upon this basis offers a substantial improvement of the accuracy of taking into account the SW effect on m 0 compared with the method of combined correction proposed earlier (E.G. Su, A.I. Yuzefovsky, R.G. Michel, J.T. McCaffrey and W. Slavin, Microchem. J., 48 (1993) 278). Exceptions are the Mn and Ni analytical lines, for which the m 0 correction has turned out to be ineffective both in the separate- and combined-correction procedures because of adjacent absorption-sensitive lines passing through the wider slit.