ICP-AES in the Analytical and Physical Chemistry Laboratories

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Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (AES) is an important laboratory tool in both analytical and physical chemistry. To provide undergraduates with experience with AES, the Department of Chemistry is introducing the use of an Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) instrument in experiments in three upper-level laboratories. Experiments from the research literature are being adapted so that undergraduate students are able to carry out investigations that use the ICP-AES to make critical determinations. Students in Instrumental Analysis Laboratory are analyzing their own sweat for elemental content, and comparing the results for one of the elements, zinc, with the value obtained by flame Atomic Absorption. Physical chemistry students determine the temperature of the plasma from the relative intensities of the atomic emission lines and from the Saha equation for the intensities of lines from ions. The ICP-AES also is being used in the Biophysical Chemistry Laboratory as part of an experiment on the metalloenzyme carbonic anhydrase. With addition of these experiments, all chemistry majors gain hands-on experience with ICP-AES at least once in their undergraduate years.