CH301: Instrumental Analysis Semester 1, 2016

Tutorial Questions on Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy

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1. The hallow cathode lamp (HCL) is used in AAS analysis, which gives radiation of narrow
wavelength specific to exciting analyte of interest in the flame. Hence a Cu HCL is used to
analyse Cu atoms in the flame. The emission lines of hallow cathode sources are so very
narrow, spectral interference due to overlapping lines is rare.
a) Describe how HCL works.
b) Explain why the HCL is filled with inert gases such as Ne or Ar.
c) The emission spectrum of HCL for molybdenum was found to have a sharp peak at
313.3 nm as long as the lamp current was less than 50 mA. At higher currents,
however, the peak developed a cup-like crater at its maximum. Explain.

2. In atomic spectroscopy, a substance is decomposed into atoms in a flame and this process is
called the atomization.
a) Explain the atomization process in the flame.
b) Apart from flame there are some other techniques available for atomization process
and discuss the application for each of these techniques.

3. For the same concentration of nickel, the height of the absorption peak at 352.4 nm was
found to be 30% greater for a solution that contained 50% ethanol than for an aqueous
solution. Explain.

4. a) Explain the purpose of standard addition procedure.

b) Students performed a standard addition experiment to determine [Na+] in the serum.
Each flask contained 25.0 mL of serum and varying amounts of 2.640 M NaCl standard was
added and was diluted to total volume of 50.00 mL. The resulting solution was measured
with FES.

Flask Volume of Na+ atomic

standard (mL) emission signal
(mV)
1 0 3.13
2 1.000 5.40
3 2.000 7.89
4 3.000 10.30
5 4.000 12.48

Prepare a standard addition graph and find [Na+] in the serum.