Atomic Spectroscopy refers to the determination of components of elements by mass spectrum or electromagnetics. Electrons usually exist in levels of energy within a given atom. Industries dealing with pharmaceuticals, foods, consumer products, and wastewater streams use this technique to quantify elements, especially metals. Atomic spectroscopy technique analytical use. Atomic spectroscopy works mainly on three forms, namely absorption, emission, and fluorescence.
Atomic Emission
In this technique, a lab manager subjects a sample to high energy to produce state atoms that emit light. The source of energy can be a flame, plasma, or electrical arc. The spectrum emission of an element exposed to these energy sources consists of given allowable emission lines. These emitted wavelengths are discreet.
The lab technician can use the emission spectrum as a unique feature when qualitatively identifying elements. The most common emission technique in qualitative analysis is the use of electrical arcs. The technician can use the emission technique to determine the quantity of an element present in a sample.
For quantitative analysis, the lab technician must measure the light intensity emitted at the element’s wavelengths. The intensity of emission at this wavelength is higher as the element’s atomic number increases. The manager can buy the appropriate equipment from a site such as https://www.agilent.com/en/product/atomic-spectroscopy.
Some of the advantages of this technique are: It’s highly specific, extremely sensitive, can be performed either in liquid or solid-state, requires minimum preparation of the sample, a technician can take spectra simultaneously for two or more elements, and gives rapid results. Some of the disadvantages are costly testing equipment, and it less accurate compared to the absorption technique.
Atomic Absorption
This technique measures the light amount at the wavelength absorbed as it passes through atoms. With an increase in the number of atoms in the light path, absorbed light also increases. The technician can quantitatively determine the analyte element present by measuring the absorbed amount of light. Besides, they can carefully select wavelengths and use special light sources to determine particular elements quantitatively.
The technician will then produce the atom cloud needed for atomic absorption by supplying sufficient thermal energy. This action will dissociate chemical compounds in the tested sample into free atoms.
The absorption technique is easy and faster. Thus, most technicians prefer it since they can precisely and accurately determine metals present in a sample.
Atomic Fluorescence
This technique combines some aspects of both atomic emission and absorption. The lab technician creates ground state atoms in a flame by focusing a light beam in an atomic vapor. They then measure the emission from the atoms decay excited by the light source instead of concentrating on the absorbed light. The lab technician uses this for quantitative determination.
Which Atomic Spectroscopy Equipment Should You Buy?
Selecting equipment for element analysis is challenging since a lab technician has many options, and also these techniques complement one another. Before buying, from sellers like agilent.com/en/product/atomic-spectroscopy, you have to consider the requirements for the lab. These needs may include an analytical range of working, sample throughput, and limits of detection. As a lab manager, you may be concerned about the cost, but it’s a trivial factor. Quality of data is essential, so you need to focus on equipment that offers this.
Atomic spectroscopy has principles based on emission, absorption, and fluorescence. The most common of the three is absorption, as it offers accurate results compared to the other two.
