SIMPLE EXPERIMENTS FOR THE CONTROL, THE EVALUATION AND THE DIAGNOSIS OF INDUCTIVELY-COUPLED PLASMA SEQUENTIAL SYSTEMS

Simple experiments based on the use of Ar, Mg, Ba and Zn are proposed to evaluate and control the analytical performance of the inductively coupled plasma (ICP) system and to identify possible causes of degradation of the results. These experiments allow the ICP user to verify practical resolution, efficiency of ionization and excitation, light absorption, stability and efficiency of the nebulizer, limits of detection and drift. A sequential procedure is described to check each major part of the ICP system.