Ultrasonic and pneumatic nebulizers used in inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) are compared in the analysis of standard materials and environmental samples. Results verify that ICP-AES with ultrasonic nebulization is capable of lower detection limits than ICP-AES with a pneumatic system. The ultrasonic system used with desolvation, therefore, is the more desirable system when ultratrace ICP-AES quantitative analyses are required in a variety of environmental samples.
