Volatilisation of some elements from a graphite rod direct sample insertion device into an inductively coupled argon plasma for optical emission spectrometry

Abstract

Further preliminary studies of analytical performance are described for the use of a graphite rod direct sample insertion device for inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. The volatilisation of uranium, zirconium, titanium, molybdenum, boron, chromium, zinc, silver and copper from this direct sample insertion device is discussed; the use of an argon-0.1% Freon 23 mixture as injector gas permits the efficient volatilisation of refractory carbide-forming elements. Using this mixture, improvements in the detection limits of more than two orders of magnitude have been obtained for uranium, zirconium and titanium.