Studies of gas-jet assisted RF-glow discharge atomic absorption spectrometry

The gas jet assisted glow discharge source has been employed for the RF-glow discharge atomic absorption spectrometry (RF-GDAAS). Data are described to illustrate the role of discharge power, pressure as well as gas flow rate on the sample loss rate, absorbance and self-bias potential. Results show that the optimum discharge conditions depend not only on the pressure and discharge power but also on the gas flow rate. The absorbance increases as much as 1 order of magnitude as the gas flow rate increases from 50 mL/min to 500 mL/min at a pressure of 3 mbar. The use of a gas-jet source allows the direct analysis of solids by RF-GDAAS.