A critical look at calibration procedures for flame atomic-absorption spectrometry

The present treatment of calibration procedures in the analytical literature is described and the reasons for the poor coverage are discussed. The computational bases of a number of currently available atomic-absorption instrument calibration computer programs are described and discussed. Two computer-based methods are compared using the same calibration data. Additional features of these programs are also discussed. Some desirable features of such programs are proposed. The use of the standard additions method is examined in terms of the shape of the plot of absorbance versus concentration of interferent. The success of the method depends on using only the plateau region of this plot.