DISCUSSION

Atomic absorption spectroscopy or AAS is a spectroanalytical procedure for the quantitative

determination of the presence of the chemical elements by using absorption of the energy for
the atom. The difference between AAS and AES are that AAS doesn’t need to make the atom
excite because it only measure on the energy absorption of the atom. For every experiment that
uses AAS the user need to introduce the sample which involve 3 steps which is nebulization
where the liquid sample is converted into fine spray, the spray will undergo desolvation where
the sold atoms are mixed with gaseous fuel for combustion and the last step is volatilization
where the converted to a vapour. The AAS analysis can only be identified a specific type of
element, in the case is Ca because only Ca can absorb the radiation that was emitted by the
Hollow Cathode Lamp which made from Ca material due to their same wavelength emitted
and absorption. In this experiment, the concentration of the Ca was diluted by titrating 5mL of
1000ppm stock solution into a 50mL.A standard calibration curve was plotted between
absorption versus concentration of Ca in standard solution and the equation of the graph is
y=0.0361x+0.2022. From the graph, the concentration of Ca in mineral, drinking and tap water
was obtained. In mineral water, the it is detected that it contains 2.22 ppm of Ca inside the
water sample. In drinking water, the concentration found was 3.00 ppm and in tap water it has
5.80 ppm of Ca in the sample. The unknown concentration was also obtained from the equation
which is equivalent to intercept, where x intercept is equals to -0.54. The difference between
them are greatly obvious because mineral water is considered as ‘hard water’ that is safe for
drinking. This ‘hard water’ is a type of water that have high content in minerals, which the
minerals are most likely made up from calcium and magnesium.
CONCLUSION
To recapitulate, we were able to learn on how to operate a flame AAS instrument in order to
conduct the experiment. The results were based on standard calibration curve for determination
of Ca in a sample which consists of absorbance and concentration axis that has been plotted on
the graph. It showed that the amount of Ca in mineral water was 2.22ppm while the
concentration in tap water, 5.80ppm. In drinking water, the concentration found was 3.00ppm.
The unknown concentration was also obtained from the equation which is equivalent to
intercept, where x intercept is equals to -0.54. Therefore, the amount of Ca in a sample using
the standard calibration curve were determined.

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Wikipedia. (n.d.). Hard water. Retrieved from Wkipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_bicarbonate