Tungsten Coil In Electrothermal Atomic Emission Spectrometry And Electrothermal Vaporization Atomic Fluorescence Spectrometry

Tungsten coil devices have gained widespread applications in analytical atomic spectrometry since its introduction into atomic absorption spectrometry by Williams and Piepmeier in 1970s. Tungsten has the highest melting point (3422℃) among all metals in the periodic chart, and is a fine conductor of heat and electricity. Moreover, tungsten posses the features of chemical and physical stability and inertness at high temperature, and durability. The main advantage of a tungsten coil is its physical compactness and it only requires a relatively simple power supply (even a car battery can be employed), when compared to a graphite furnace, which has a rather complicated and bulky power system (2-3 kW). Furthermore, the heating rate of a W coil (30 K/ms) is about ten times faster than that of a graphite tube (2-4 K/ms). All of these prominent properties have made tungsten coil an efficient alternative to graphite furnace. In addition, those instruments based on tungsten coil and charge coupled device can be compact and miniaturized and find its special applications in field analytical chemistry.In the first chapter of this thesis, a comprehensive overview of the use of tungsten coil in analytical atomic spectrometry was presented, mainly including the advances in electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry, electrothermal vaporization and separation/preconcentration.Then in the second chapter, a compact electrothermal atomic emission spectrometer, based on a tungsten coil as the excitation source for calcium and...