Abstract
As a first step in the establishment of compromise conditions for multielement analysis by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) emission spectrometry, the effects of three critical ICP operating parameters on atomic and ionic emission of elements of interest were investigated in detail. The line/background ratios for both atom and ion lines were found to be very sensitive to (1) the aerosol Ar flow rate, (2) the observation height, and (3) the power, and optimum conditions for ion lines were often quite different from those for atom lines. In addition to assisting in the eventual choice of compromise ICP operating conditions for simultaneous multielement analysis, the results emphasize the importance of precise control of these critical parameters in analytical applications of the ICP.
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