Investigation of accuracy of measurements of flame photometer by measuring Na+ ions in water samples

Flame photometry is a method that is used to determine the concentration of ions in an aqueous solution. In daily life, this machine is mostly used in biochemistry, to determine various concentrations of ions in aqueous solution. However this method is not precise as other methods in analytical chemistry. In this study, the aim was to find out how effectively does flame photometer measures the concentration of ions in aqueous solutions. An experiment was carried out by using Na+ ions. Concentrations ranging from 1 to 25 ppm (mg/L) were used because below and upper levels does not give precise results. For the beginning of the experiment, standard solutions with known sodium ion concentration were prepared for the flame photometer. So a calibration curve was drawn showing the relationship between the concentration and emission in flame photometer. In this experiment, concentrations between 10 ppm to 25 ppm broke the linearity of the calibration curve, so standard solutions between 1 to 10 ppm were prepared. The calibration curve was linear at this time so water samples can be analysed. Some water samples were analysed. The results were mixed. Some results were close to the original value. However some results were really distant from their actual values. This shows the inaccuracy of the flame photometer. To conclude, this experiment showed that flame photometer is not a reliable method to measure concentration of ions in aqueous solutions