COMPARISON OF 2 OBJECTIVE FUNCTIONS FOR OPTIMIZATION OF SIMULTANEOUS MULTIELEMENT DETERMINATIONS IN INDUCTIVELY-COUPLED PLASMA SPECTROMETRY

Two objective functions for multi-element optimization in ICP-AES were compared using signal-to-background ratios as a figure of merit. Comp lete three-dimensional response surfaces were generated for a number o f elements (Ca, Cu, Al, Na, Ni, Mn and Ba) and two artificial 'element s' to evaluate the performance of both objective functions in locating the optimum compromise instrumental operating conditions in multi-ele ment determinations, In the determination of the best compromise instr ument operating conditions for most combinations of the elements used, both objective functions performed equally well; however, one occasio nally performed significantly better than the other.