ADVANTAGES OF COUPLING MULTIVARIATE DATA REDUCTION TECHNIQUES WITH SIMULTANEOUS INDUCTIVELY-COUPLED PLASMA OPTICAL-EMISSION SPECTRA

The application of multivariate data reduction to simultaneous inducti vely coupled plasma (ICP) optical emission spectra collected with an e chelle spectrometer and matched segmented array charge-coupled device (SCD) detector is investigated. An example of the determination of ind ium in a W/Mo matrix is examined. The combination of simultaneous spec tra from the SCD detector and multivariate data reduction permits the discrimination of correlated noise that exists in the background signa ls of ICP spectra. This leads to improvements in the detection limits not possible with sequentially scanned or direct-reading spectrometers . Detection limits for a group of elements are reported and examined u sing the signal-to-background ratio relative standard deviation of the background signal approach.