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William D. Bare,* Tom Bradley, and Elizabeth Pulliam
Many undergraduate programs use qualitative analysis of cations as a vehicle for teaching descriptive inorganic chemistry in laboratory classes. The reactions involved aptly demonstrate (and integrate!) many important concepts covered in an accompanying lecture course. One of these concepts, atomic emission, is often illustrated through the use of flame tests to identify alkali and alkaline earth metals.
These flame tests can give brightly colored flames that are enjoyable from a purely aesthetic viewpoint. Also satisfying is the opportunity to make observations based on something as fundamental as atomic structure with a device as simple as a Bunsen burner. The combination of these pleasures (and perhaps a modicum of pyromania) would lead one to predict that flame tests should be very popular with students. Our experience, however, has been that this is not the case.
Flame tests performed with a nichrome wire are notoriously...