A carbon furnace atomizer has been developed which can be directly attached to a gas chromatography column. The atomizer exhibits high sensitivity and eliminates many of the problems involved with interferences encountered with furnace atomization. The functioning of the instrument is demonstrated for tetraalkyllead in various brands of gasoline, and for organic lead compounds in air. The process of atomization in furnace atomizers, and the numerous problems which lead to sensitive but unreliable data when normal commercial furnace atomizers are used, are discussed. The atomizer described overcomes most of the problems discussed.

A simple G.C. - atomic absorption device has been built which utilizes an electrically heated carbon atomizer as the detector. This system combines the separation potentials of G.F. with the analytical specificity and sensitivity of atomic absorption spectroscopy.