The use of a special intermittent nebulisation technique to suppress the background in flame-emission spectra

A submerged oscillator-capillary technique is described, which produces a frequency and phase-stable intermittent fluid supply at 50 Hz to the flame of a flame spectrophotometer. With this technique the background radiation from the flame can be suppressed.The cooling effect of the nebulised water on the flame is overcome by the choice of a suitable organic solvent. The usefulness of the technique is demonstrated with typical spectral curves.