A high temperature hollow cathode lamp from Applied Research Laboratories, Luton, was used for multielement determination of trace elements in steels, nickel-base alloys and ferroalloys. A 10-mg sample (chips) was placed inside a hollow graphite electrode in the lamp, which was filled with helium. It was possible to raise the power through the lamp linearly and automatically, so that the combined thermal and sputtering effect in the lamp atomized the different elements one after another according to their boiling points. This selective volatilization improved the precision and the limits of detection for the elements determined. Analysis results for Pb, Bi, Zn, Ag, Sb, and Ca in the concentration range 0.05 to 100 μg g−1 are discussed. Because of the effective atomization in the lamp, no matrix effects were observed for these elements. One of the main purposes of this investigation was to study the time dependence of the intensity for the different elements during the volatilization phase. This procedure gave very clean spectra. In this investigation a new computerized image dissector echelle spectrometer, was used as the registration system.
