Atomic absorption emission - Lab Report Example

When a graph of the light intensity against Na+ concentration for the various solutions is plotted, it is observed that there is a linear relationship between the two parameters. This is indicated below. The curve has a clear linear relationship at the start but this change as the concentration and the light intensity is increased. At high levels, the curve tends away from linearity as there are more ions in the solution leading to reduced light intensity of the flame. As more Na+ ions are in more concentrated solutions, they tend to atomize faster as concentrated solutions have less water and more Na+ ions.

In addition to this, the curve has some imperfections in its linearity at higher levels of Na+ ion concentration and high light intensity. This is due to the fact that at such level, the a number of excited atoms gets to a limit beyond which they cannot atomize without dropping back to the ground as coalesced Na. The intensity of the light also changes due to self-absorption where at high concentration the more atoms in the flame absorb more light. This makes the curve bend towards the x-axis (concentration axis).

In addition to this, it’s clearly evident that the amount of heat emitted by the flame highly depends on the number of Na atoms in the flame. Therefore, to attain a perfect liner relationship, we might need to dilute the samples during calibration as to have a small amount of Na+ ions in the solution. At relatively high concentration, there are many atoms in the flame edges that absorb more light emitted by the inner atoms hence a reduced light intensity. The signal is fairly unstable as the intensity of the light emitted keeps changing over time.

This mainly happens due to the change in the atomization rates over time. This leads to the signals relayed changing over time to reflect the changes in the atomization rates hence the