Inductively Coupled Plasma Emission Spectroscopy : Methodology, Instrumentation, and Performance

In the 1960s, the development of inductively coupled plasmas (ICP) as excitation sources for atomic emission spectroscopy (AES) permitted, for the first time, the convenient, simultaneous determination of a number of chemical elements in solutions. In two self-contained volumes, this is the first definitive text/reference on ICP-AES since the introduction of this important analytical technique.

Part 1 of Inductively Coupled Plasma Emission Spectroscopy covers the basis of ICP-AES as an analytical method and discusses fundamental analytical concepts, performance, and figures of merit; principles of the instrumentation; the relation between ICP and other modern "plasma sources;" and the connection between ICP-AES, on one hand, and ICP atomic fluorescence spectroscopy and ICP mass spectroscopy, on the other.

Part 2 examines applications and fundamentals of the technique. The overall treatment of the subject is tutorial, systematic, and consistent. The approach is scientific and rigorous, but mathematical formulae are used only when they promote clarity. Aside from filling a void in the AES literature, Inductively Coupled Plasma Emission Spectroscopy provides a critical survey of more than 20 years of research, development, and application in the field of ICP and related plasma sources. It is an excellent handbook for both novices and experts, and it serves as an aidememoire and major source of reference for analytical spectroscopists, analytical chemists, physical chemists and physicists, including those who are researchers, technicians, and applied analysts.

About the editor P. W. J. M. Boumans, Chief Scientist with Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, has conducted research at the forefront of atomic spectroscopy for more than 25 years. He has published the now-classical book, Theory of Spectrochemical Excitation, and many important articles on ICP optimization, detection limits, line selection, and spectral interferences, including a two-volume tabulation, "Line Coincidence Tables for ICP Atomic Emission Spectrometry." In 1979, he became Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Spectrochimica Acta, Part B, Atomic Spectroscopy, after serving as editor seven years. He also serves on the editorial boards of Progress in Analytical Spectroscopy, The ICP Information Newsletter, Analusis, and Talanta. Dr. Boumans studied chemistry and physics at the University of Amsterdam, where he obtained his doctor's degree cum laude in 1961.