An Improved Double Stage Furnace for Speciatton and Quantitative Atomic Absorption Spectrometry

Atomic absorption using furnace atomization suffers from three major problems. First, the matrix causes a change in absorption signal, second, the decomposition products cause a very high, variable background, and third, volatile elements are often lost during the evaporation and ashing steps. These problems are significantly reduced using the double stage system described below.

It consists of a separately heated atomization section, and vaporization section; and a light path which does not pass through the atomization section. This reduces background. The system operates in three modes. With the atomization section hot and the sample placed in the vaporization section, the latter is heated rapidly. This gives a fast quantitative signal with reduced background. With the atomization section cold, the sample is heated leisurely. The metal