A Kalman filter was developed for resolving overlapping lines in inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) and evaluated experimental with the determination of La in the presence of Ho, and Cu in the presence of Pr. The whiteness of the innovation sequence for an optimal filter was explored to be the criterion for the correction of the wavelength positioning errors which may occur in spectral scans. Under the conditions of the medium-resoln. spectrometer and 1.5 pm step size in scans, the filter effectively resolved the Cu/Pr line pair having a small peak separation of 4.8 pm. For the La/Ho line pair with a peak distance of 9.8 pm, an unbiased estimate for La concentration was still obtained even when the signal-to-background ratio was down to 0.048. Favorable detection limits for real samples were achieved. Unstructured backgrounds were modeled theor. and all spectral scans therefore did not require the correction for solvent blank.

Key words: ICP, ATOMIC EMISSION SPECTROMETRY, KALMAN FILTERING, SPCCTRAL INTERFERENCE