Flow Analysis (FA) offers a very convenient and fast approach to enhance and automate 'preliminary steps' of analysis (sample dissolution, pretreatments, preconcentrations, etc.) for atomic spectrometric detectors (ASD). Moreover, flow manifolds can ease the well-known problem of sample introduction/presentation to atomisers or even expand the classical scope of atomic/elemental information, characterizing atomic spectrometry, into the realm of molecules and metal-compounds analysis (e.g. by resorting to coupled separation techniques). All these facts could explain both the extraordinary interest for research and the great importance for practical problem-solving achieved nowadays by FA-ASD.On the threshold of the new millennium when plasma emission and mass spectrometry are so important and popular, the editor considered it timely to produce a book which covers all present atomic detectors and techniques where FA has been or can be advantageously employed. The book has been conceived in three separate parts: Part I gives the fundamental, instrumentation and potential of FIA as a most versatile sample presentation/introduction system for atomic spectrometry.
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