When you're ready to take the emissions readings, light the flame and stabilize the photometer. You may ask the teacher's assistant to light the flame for you and give you safety instructions.
To stabilize the unit, aspirate the deionized water for at least two minutes. Set the ZERO knob to 0.0 units. You will notice a bounce on the meter.
Aspirate the most concentrated standard solution. Set the GAIN knob to 100.0 units.
Recheck your settings for both your ZERO and GAIN knobs.
Begin aspirating the standards and unknowns. Aspirate deionized water between each to clean the unit out. The burner will show a "memory effect".
Repeat steps 2 to 4 to get accurate, duplicate measurements. If the measurements do not match up, repeat the steps a third time.
Clean out the units again by aspirating deionized water for two minutes.
Call your teacher's assistant to turn off your photometer.