Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry

Abstract

It was not until 1859, when Kirchhoff and Bunsen speculated that the sharp line spectra from flames when burning salts were originated from atoms and not from molecules, that the nature of emission spectra began to be understood. Much of their work was made possible by Bunsen’s invention of a burner (which still carries his name today), which can produce a nearly transparent and nonluminescent flame. In the following years, Kirchhoff and Bunsen developed methods based on spectroscopy that led to the eventual discovery of four elements, Cs, Rb, Tl, and In. From then on, the presence of sharp spectral lines, unobserved earlier, was the proof that scientists required for the verification of the discovery of a new element. All these facts led to these two scientists being called the pioneers of spectrochemical analysis.