Characteristic Concentration and Sensitify

Hi,

Whats different Characteristic Concentration and Sensitifity?

on cookbook say:

sensitifity 324.8nm 1.5ppm = 0.2 Abs

and

Characteristic Concentration

Which one is more important before running AAS?

  • Hi Dana

    The way I was originally taught this was that the sensitivity in flame-aas referred to the concentration of that element that gave a signal of 0.2. The characteristic concentration is the concentration of that element equal to an absorbance of 0.0044 (99% T). As to which one is more important. To me characteristic concentration is more related to the detection limit though others may disagree. When carrying out analyses with flame-aas I always look at the sensitivity on the day verses that expected to get an idea of how the analysis on that day

    Kevin

  • Hi Soccerdad,

    Thanks for answer, and how agilent have spesification document about 0.2Abs on each element, mean lower limit allowed and max limit allowed abs from 0.2 abs?

  • Hi Dana, I wasn’t totally certain what you meant but here goes.. I haven’t come across limits for the sensitivity anywhere though others may have done. I use the values just as a guide as to what the sensitivity should be when I measure it. I was told that the values quoted in the software should be easy to achieve with a functioning unit without too much need for optimization. I think this may be because the values were first determined in the past using older AAS models. Kevin

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