Question Five: State the advantages and a major limitation of each of the following methods; i) flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (FAAS) ii) electrothermal atomic absorption spectroscopy (EAAS) iii) flame emission spectroscopy (FES) and iv) Atomic fluorescence spectroscopy (AFS) a) (10) b) Explain the advantages of fast Fourier transformation over ensemble averaging enhancement technique. 2) Solution a) Advantages of FAAS: It is inexpensive process,with high precision,and easy to use method. Disadvantage of FAAS: It is used to analyze only solution of the sample in relatively large amounts,around 1 to 2ml 2)Advantages of EAAS:-No initial addition of chemical reagents required, which minimizes trace metal contamination of the sample. -Small sample volume is used up,in which entire volume vaporizes -atom are released in high concentration in small gas volume -organic molecules breaks up into simpler atoms due to high temperatures before it changes to vapors -inert gas prevents recombination of atoms Disadvantage of EAAS: Imprecision is the major disadvantage of EAAS Adv of flame emission spectroscopy -use of inductively coupled plasma gives excellent limit of detection,low chemical interference and multiple element capacity Disadvantage: several spectral lines and expensive process Advantage s of AFS -fluorescence signal has very low background noise so high sensitivity -resonant excitation offers selective detection of test atom Disadvantage:poor sensitivity for some elements as they are the ones that absorb visible region wavelengths B) fast Fourier transformation provides an algorithm converts signal from time domain to frequency domain,that gives much faster computation of discrete Fourier,it being the digitalized version of previous techniques like ensemble averaging Disadvantage of .