I am looking for a new instrument for the lab of my company with the aim to accelerate the QC of some products that we produce (fertilizer), in particular for the analysis of micro-elements and potassium.
With my knowledge, I think that the best instruments could be AAS or ICP, but many vendors push me to ICP. The price are similar but not equal and considering that we don't have more than 10 samples for a day, I am not sure about what is the best choice.
What is your opinion about the best instrument for this task? Considering that we work with a quite high concentration of the elements that we need to quantify, not less of 0.1% w/w normally and the elements that we need to quantify are K, Mg, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, Mo
Valentino
Dear Valentino, How about XRF with portable instruments?Meanwhile, I would very much appreciate a set of samples from you, to apply various Raman techniques.!
Best wishes!
I myself use the ICP-AES technique on a daily basis, and sometimes also FAAS / FAES, but I join the question from Simon. Why are you not considering the XRF technique and especially TXRF? However, when results with the highest possible accuracy are needed for several elements in several samples a day, only the FAAS / FAES technique can provide this. But it is a technique that requires the transformation of solid samples into solutions.
The matrices are difficult and you'll need careful attention to matrix matching to get satisfactory AAS or ICP analyses.
Dear Prof Milham, for sure the matrix is not the easiest, but I would like an opinion about the choice of ICP or AAS. Considering the quite small number of samples I am more oriented to AAS but many vendors push to ICP on the other side anyone is clear about the maintenance costs, in my opinion, AAS appears as a more rugged object instead of ICP but I am not sure.
About other techniques, XRF appears very interesting, I am just starting to read some application papers, I suppose (and hope) that the preparation of the samples is less tedious than the ICP and AAS methods. Dear Simona, do you have a paper to advise me about the competitive confrontation of the techniques?
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