Studies on Determination of Tin and Lead in Alloys for Organ Pipes by GD-OES and Detecting Capability of Charge Coupled Device (CCD)

Abstract

In this work, the determination of tin and lead in their alloys for use as organ pipe materials was performed by a glow discharge optical emission spectrometry (GD-OES) using charge coupled device (CCD) spectrometers. The lead and tin alloy has been used as a typical material for organ pipes since very long ago and are being used for the renovating of the old pipes at present. The choice is related to the tone of the note required from the pipe and occasionally to the wealth and generosity. In addition, the use of the alloy arises due to the unique acoustic properties of themselves and the micro-structural condition. The alloy pipes have been made with as high a composition as 85% lead and 15% tin in the last hundred years or more, but the organ trade had the view that no alloy for organ pipes contain less than 25% tin and no alloy with less than 55% tin should be employed in really good work. 1,2 Both elements are major constituents in the alloy. For the analysis, a careful performance should be tried to decrease the error as well as the deviation in the determined results. Therefore, GD-OES was chosen as an analytical method in this work.