USE OF IMAGE-PROCESSING TO AID FURNACE SET-UP IN ELECTROTHERMAL ATOMIC-ABSORPTION SPECTROMETRY

A charge-coupled device (CCD) camera has been used to obtain high-defi nition video images of the cross-section of the tube in a graphite fur nace atomizer, Image processing algorithms have been developed to extr act automatically from the images certain features which are of use du ring the initial set-up and alignment of the atomizer in an atomic abs orption spectrometer. These features include the alignment of the tube , the angle of a platform with respect to the vertical asis and the he ight of an autosampler capillary tip above the tube wall or the platfo rm, In addition, algorithms have been developed to analyse images reco rded after sample injection, to detect whether all of the liquid has b een deposited correctly into the tube, Detection of the poor injection of a blood serum sample is given to illustrate the usefulness of tile algorithm.