Feasibility of peak volume algorithm in electrothermal vaporization microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry

Electro‐thermal vaporization has served as an alternative sample introduction method in atomic spectrometry for some time and provided a better solution for quick analysis of complicated samples because of its high sensitivity and effective separation of analyte from matrix materials. The quick heating process produces sharp signals that can provide much better limits of detection with significant improvements compared with the nebulization sample introduction method. However, it also makes the results worse repeatable, which leads to a worse analytical precision. To improve the precision of the newly developed electrothermal vaporization microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry and to make good use of the limited data obtained in a limited period of time, some different evaluation methods, such as peak height (symbol, Ih), peak area (symbol, IΣt), and peak volume (symbol, IΣλ‐t) for the results treatment are compared in this paper. It comes out that the results calculated by the optimized peak volume algorithm can significantly improve the precision and retain the high linearity at the same time. Limit of detection of this electrothermal vaporization microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry system used in this paper for Cu was shown to be 1 μg/L, and the relative standard deviation of 11 repeated measurements can be improved from 10% to 5.6% while retaining good linearity, as expressed by both the squared correlation coefficient obtained with optimized peak volume algorithm and with raw peak height method (squared correlation coefficient of the standard curve R2 > 0.999). To improve the precision of the newly developed electrothermal‐vaporization microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ETV‐MPT‐AES), and to make good use of the limited data obtained in a limited period, a new peak volume algorithm was applied to the quantitative analysis of electrothermal‐vaporization microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry in this paper. It comes out that the results calculated by the optimized peak volume algorithm can significantly improve the precision and retain the high linearity at the same time.