The design and operational characteristics of platforms used in carbon furnace atomic-emission spectrometry are described. Platforms made of graphite and coated with pyrolytic graphite give significant improvements in the sensitivity and detection limits achieved for 23 out of 24 elements investigated. The delay in atomisation allows the production of the atomic vapour at a time when the vapour phase inside the furnace atomiser has reached higher temperatures. Improvements in signal to noise ratio have also been achieved through use of a high-resolution échelle spectrometer, a novel square-wave wavelength modulation system and the better separation of the analyte signals from blank signals.