[A genetic algorithm approach to qualitative analysis in inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy].

Genetic algorithm (GA) is used in automatic qualitative analysis by a sequential inductively coupled plasma spectrometer (ICP-AES) and a computer program is developed in this paper. No any standard samples are needed, and spectroscopic interferences can be eliminated. All elements and their concentration ranges of an unknown sample can be reported. The replication rate Pr, crossover rate Pc, and mutation rate of the genetic algorithm were adjusted to be 0.6, 0.4 and 0 respectively. The analytical results of GA are in good agreement with the reference values. It indicates that, combined with the intensity information, the GA can be applied to spectroscopic qualitative analysis and expected to become an effective method in qualitative analysis in ICP-AES after further work.