NEWS A.) also offer possibilities for nonmetallic element studies. A third area of improvement relates to developing instruments and methods for increasing conoentrational sensi tivity of spectrochemical analysis. Typical examples include the carrierdistillation method, utilization of vapor pressure differential of metallic ele ments when melted in vacuum furnaces, collection of sample fractions on elec trodes, ion exchange, chromatographic, electrochemical, and zone refining methods. A fourth area of improvement would increase accuracy of analysis by means other than improving sample quality. A fifth area involves computations. With more than two elements present in a sample, interelement effects occur, and as wider and wider concentration ranges are covered, the need for com puters becomes greater. Another pioneer in the field of di rect-reading spectrometry, J. L. Saunderson, who worked originally with Dow Chemical Co. and at present with Baird-Atomic, discussed recent devel opments in direct-reading spectrom eters. Such improvements as rapid change over for different types of analyses, and simple and speedy adjustments have led to improved performance, reli ability, and ease of operation. In creased flexibility has expanded the scope of work possible. A new approach to signal-measuring techniques, reported by Frederick Brech, Jarrell-Ash Co., involves con version of the signal from photomultiplier transducers into pulses, the inte grated number of which is a direct measure of the signal strength. Inte gration is achieved through use of a pulse-actuated motor responding to pulses at any rate up to 400 cycles per second. Precision and stability are at tained through this means, he said. Work done in the automatic record ing and computation of spectrochemical data at the National Bureau of Stand ards was outlined by B. F. Scribner. The spectrometer output is fed to a digital electronic storage and read into an IBM card. Intensity measurements on 18 elements are recorded in 10 sec onds after the exposure is completed. Advantages of high-speed electronic read-out systems are reduced transcrip tion errors and increased speed. NBS has applied this system to studies of homogeneity of alloys. Several other applications of emission spectroscopy were outlined at the sym posium. A pioneering application re lates to a study on the concentration of metals in human tissues. As many as 14 different tissues are analyzed for 13
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