ADVANTAGES OF COUPLING MULTIVARIATE DATA REDUCTION TECHNIQUES WITH SIMULTANEOUS INDUCTIVELY-COUPLED PLASMA OPTICAL-EMISSION SPECTRA

The application of multivariate data reduction to simultaneous inductively coupled plasma (ICP) optical emission spectra collected with an echelle spectrometer and matched segmented array charge-coupled device (SCD) detector is investigated. An example of the determination of indium in a W/Mo matrix is examined. The combination of simultaneous spectra from the SCD detector and multivariate data reduction permits the discrimination of correlated noise that exists in the background signals of ICP spectra. This leads to improvements in the detection limits not possible with sequentially scanned or direct-reading spectrometers. Detection limits for a group of elements are reported and examined using the signal-to-background ratio relative standard deviation of the background signal approach.