A History of the origins of “Atomic Spectrometry Updates”

J. B. Dawson and W. J. Price

ORIGINS

The chain of events leading up to the establishment of Atomic Spectrometry Updates (ASU) began in a Melbourne garden one Sunday morning in March 1952 when Alan Walsh, in his own words¹ realised “that there appeared to be no good reason for neglecting atomic absorption spectra” as a tool for spectrochemical analysis. Next day, the essential components of a practical analytical instrument were assembled and consisted of an atomic vapour generator (a flame), a modulated atomic resonance line light source (a sodium vapour discharge lamp), wavelength selection and a photo detector system tuned to the modulation frequency. The experiment was a success and Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS) was born.

The relevance of the demonstration and subsequent promotion of AAS by Alan Walsh to the emergence of ASU lies in the fact that early in the 1960’s workers in the UK who were applying AAS to practical analytical problems were brought together under the auspices of the Physical Methods Group of the Society for Analytical Chemistry (SAC), (now the Analytical Division (AD) of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)) to form, in 1962, the AAS Discussion Group with W. T. Elwell as chairman. The Group thrived and became the Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy Group (AASG) of the SAC in 1964. Again in 1969, the name of the Group was changed to the Atomic Spectroscopy Group (ASG) to reflect the widening interest of members in other spectrochemical methods, particularly atomic fluorescence and inductively coupled plasma emission. Later, X-ray fluorescence and mass spectrometry were included in the remit of the Group. The ASG continues to be active today and has prime responsibility for organising the Biennial National Atomic Spectroscopy Symposia.

1. Walsh, A.*, The development of the atomic absorption spectrometer. Spectrochim. Acta. Part B, 1999, 54, 1943.
   * Deceased: Correspondence to P.Hannaford, CSIRO, Manufacturing Science and Technology, Clayton 3169, Australia

...The Forerunner