Particle air pollution monitoring with nuclear analytical techniques: challenges and opportunities

1

Particle air pollution monitoring with nuclear
analytical techniques challenges and
opportunities
Dieter Schwela, Christine Nelima Okhoya, Andrzej
Markowicz, Flora L. Santos
2
Sequence of events that occur during the most
common type of nuclear reaction used for neutron
activation analysis
3
NAA arrangement
Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute
4

• NAA is applied e.g. in the fields of
• Environmental sciences
• Materials research
• Biology, medicine geochemistry, archeology
• For the certification of standard reference
  materials (SRM),
• As a reference method for other analytical
  procedures.

5
?-spectrum of an aerosol filter with NAA
Irradiation Time 1 min Measurement Time 7
min Decay Time 3 min
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Sources of APM pollution in Beijing as identified
by NAA
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Sources of PM pollution in Vietnam as identified
by NAA
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The principle of XRF and the typical XRF
detection arrangement
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XRF spectrometer
PNRI, Philippines
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Source apportionment of coarse (PM10-2.5) and
fine (PM2.5) particulate matter in Metro Manila
(XRF)
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Ion beam analysis methods
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Ion beam analysis
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Ion Beam Techniques of Analysis PIXE- X-rays,
Al to Pb PIGE ?-rays, F, Na, Al .. PESA
Particle Elastic Scattering, H RBS Rutherford
Backscatter, C, N, O Generally analysed for over
20 elements using these 4 techniques
simultaneously. Multi-elemental analysis ideal
for Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Positive
Matrix Factorisation (PMF), Source
fingerprinting and apportionment
14
Spectra of the IBA Techniques
PIXE
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Source apportionment of coarse and fine
particulate matter from an urban site in the
Wellington region (IBA)
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Conclusions
NATs (NAA, XRF, IBA) are reliable and precise
analytical techniques for the determination of
multiple elements Various types of sources of
particulate air pollutants are characterized by
the elemental composition of the
particles Knowledge of the elements in particles
allows the identification of the origin of the
particles Quantitative apportionment of the
existing types of sources Relatively high costs
of the nuclear analytical instrumentation NATs
can also be used in other fields of environmental
management and material testing.