ABSTRACT
This chapter covers the characteristics of the individual instruments and associated procedures. The purpose of the internal standard is to serve as a reference point for instrument readout values for the analyte such that in a ratio of the readout for the analyte to the readout for the internal standard, the effect cancels out. Since some sample may be consumed, such as in sample aspiration in atomic absorption or sample injection in gas chromatography, prior to making the second and subsequent additions of the analyte, the standard additions method could result in an error due to concentration changes that result. The authors describe four important functions that microprocessors, microcomputers, and computers in general perform in the analytical laboratory. The functions are data acquisition, data manipulation and storage, graph plotting and experiment control.
