Activation analysis of air particulate matter

The contamination of air and especially air particulate matterby inorganic as well as organic contaminants is still today oneof the most important topics for the protection of man in hisenvironment. The human organism can exist without the uptake offood for several weeks, without water in the desert for severaldays, but without breathing air only for a few minutes. Inhalationthrough the respiratory tract of the lung al veoli regiontogether with ingestion through the gastro-intestinal tract isthe most sensitive and effective pathway for environmentalpollutants into the human organism. From deposits within thelung alveoli, soluble contaminants can be taken directly up bythe blood and transported into most organs of the human body.Many elements of the periodic system are of interest, if theyare invol ved in measurable element concentrations. Therefore,the analysis of air particulate matter is an extreme multielementchallenge (1). For practical reasons, pure instrumentalanalysis is preferred to combined chemical/instrumental analysis,as long as it can be applied (2).The most important instrumental multi-element analysis methods,also for air particulate matter, are mass spectrometry, activationanalysis, atomic emission spectrometry, X-ray fluorescencespectrometry and few others (2). In many cases, more than justone of these methods is necessary in order to supplement eachother with respect to a large number of elements to be determinedwithin one sample, to the detection limits, precision andaccuracy required and to interferences by the other constituentsas well by the matrix. This has to be kept in mind whenexamining the following air particulate matter only by activationanalysis.The following review in activation analysis of air particulatematter is an extended and updated version of a review given bythe same authors several years ago (3). This older review containsa valuable and extensive list of all elements analyzed in air samples from more than 120 publications; it is not repeatedhere and the reader is referred to it. The chapters on datahandling and evaluation are based mainly on a previous investigationon data concentration (reduction) by one of the authors(4).The following review was intended as a chapter of a monographon activation analysis and its application. It is also a preprintfor use by the Advisory Board Meeting of the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency at Vienna, 28th November to 2nd December1988 on "Nuclear Techniques in Air Pollution Monitoring"