The Birth of the AtomicAbsorptionSpectrometer

The first application of atomic absorption spectra to chemical analysis was made as long ago as 1860 by Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (1824-87), who demonstrated the presence of various elements in the solar atmo-sphere. Together with Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-99), he showed shortly afterwards that atomic spectra, whether in emission or absorption, could be the basis of a powerful method of chemical analysis. From that time on, emission methods of spectrochem. ical analysis were gradually developed and by the mid-1940s had culminated in direct-reading spectrometers, which provided simultaneous multi-element analyses at high speed in the metallurgical industries. Although the possibility of determining metals by atomic absorp-tion spectroscopy (AAS) had been recognized by Bunsen and Kirchhoff, it was virtually ignored, probably be-cause it was a more difficult technique and because it was not expected to give any information that could not be obtained more easily by emission measurements (1)