Thimble glass frit nebulizer for atomic spectrometry

A thimble-shaped glass frit nebulizer has been developed for atomic spectrometry. The thimble glass frit was pressurized internally by gases such as helium (He) or argon (Ar) while the test solution was applied externally to the frit. The pressurized gas exited through the pores of the glass frit and shattered the thin liquid film flowing on the surface of the thimble-shaped device to form small droplets. A small spray chamber surrounded the nebulizer to remove the large droplets. Small droplets were then introduced into inductively coupled plasmas (ICP) sustained in either Ar or He. To reduce the memory effect noted in the frit-type nebulizers, a clean-out system was also devised. Detection limits, signal-to-background ratios (S/B), precision, memory effects, noise power spectra (NPS), and particle size distributions measured with the new nebulizer were compared to those of disk and cylindrical glass frit nebulizers and the commonly used pneumatic nebulizer for Ar ICP atomic emission spectrometry (AES). Analytical performance was also measured for He ICP by using frit-type nebulizers and an ultrasonic nebulizer.