Comparison of various calibration techniques for the direct spectroscopical analysis of SiC powders.

Techniques for the direct analysis of powdered advanced ceramics provide an advantageous alternative to methods using wet digestion in sample preparation. The direct spectrochemical methods based on electrothermal vaporization (ETV-ICP-OES, solid-ETV-AAS, etc.) show a great similarity to the classical method of d. c. arc excitation. The calibration procedure is the major difficulty of all techniques applied for direct solid sample analysis, as there is a lack of suitable reference materials of ceramics. Consequently, it was necessary to verify various possibilities of preparation and application of model calibration samples. The results of such a calibration are compared with those using within-laboratory standards.