Simple Demountable Hollow Cathode for Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy

Abstract
A simple demountable hollow cathode for atomic absorption spectroscopy has been developed which involves very little cost and is simple to construct. The performance of the demountable lamp was compared with commercial lamps for the elements zinc, chromium, and nickel. The lamps were found to be almost identical with respect to stability, precision of data, detection limits, and analytically useful ranges for these three elements. It is felt that use of this demountable hollow cathode can greatly extend the number of elements which can be determined by atomic absorption for a laboratory unable to invest in commercial hollow cathodes.