Development of New High Temperature Plasma Sources for Spectrochemical Analysis: Multivariate Optimization by the Modified Sequential Simplex Method

The new high temperature plasma source for spectrochemical analysis has been developed and characterized. In the development of new high temperature plasma sources for atomic emission spectrocopy, optimization of experimental variables is necessary to achieve the best analytical results. By means of a modified sequential simplex optimization method, six experimental variables were optimized. The line-to-background (L/B) ratio for Ca(II) at 393.37 nm was used as measure of the response function. The optimal experimental conditions were found to be at a current of 27.8 A, a plasma length of 28.8 mm, a sample uptake rate of 1.3 ml/min, a sample carrier gas flow rate of 0.7 ml/min, a plasma gas flow rate of 4.9 l/min, and an observation height of 6.4 mm above the top quartz tube.