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

Dieter Schwela, Christine Nelima Okhoya, Andrzej Markowicz, Flora L. Santos

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Sequence of events that occur during the most common type of nuclear reaction used for neutron activation analysis

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NAA arrangement

Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute

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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.

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Irradiation Time: 1 min

Measurement Time: 7 min

Decay Time: 3 min

γ-spectrum of an aerosol filter with NAA

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Source Elements

Soil, flying ash Al, Ba, Ca, Ce, Ey, Fe, Ga, Hf, La, Mg, Sc, Sm, Th, Ti, V

Refuse incineration

As, Cs, I, K, Rb, Sb, Se, Zn

Motor Vehicles and Coal Burning

As, Br, Co, Ga, Sb, Se, U, V, W

Seaspray Cl, Na

Sources of APM pollution in Beijing as identified by NAA

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Source ElementsVehicular Emissions Br, Zn

Coal Burning Se

Industrial processes Ce, Co, Cr, Pb, Sb

Road dust Al, Ti, V

Soil dust Fe, Th

Biomass burning K

Marine aerosols Na, Cl

Mineral fly ash Sc, La

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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a. coarse

17%

13%

33%1%

36%Vehicular (S, Zn, Pb)

Soil tire-wear

S-fraction

Salt

Soil-cement mixture

Source apportionment of coarse (PM10-2.5) and fine (PM2.5) particulate matter in Metro Manila (XRF)

b. fine

17%

14%

21%8%1%

39%

Aged salt (Na, S)

Black carbon (BC, Br,Cl)Oil burning (BC, S. Ni)

Soil

2-stroke (BC, Zn, Pb)

Biomass burning (BC,K)

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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, OGenerally 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

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PIGE

100

1,000

10,000

100,000

0 200 400 600

Energy (keV)

Co

un

ts /

3 µ

C

511 keV

F 197 keV

Na 440 keV

(21±2) µg/cm2

PESA

1

10

100

1,000

10,000

0 1000 2000 3000

Energy (keV)

Co

un

ts/

3 µ

C

H

5.4 µg/cm2

C,F

2.6 MeV protons

RBS

0

200

400

600

800

1000

0 1000 2000 3000

Energy (keV)

Co

un

ts/

3 µ

CO

C

F

2.6 MeV protons

Mascot, Sydney

1

10

100

1000

10000

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18X-ray Energy (keV)

Co

un

ts/ 3

µC

Data

Bkg

Fit

Al

Si

S Cl

KCa

Ti

Mn

Fe

Cu

ZnPb

Pb

Br

Spectra of the IBA Techniques

PIXE

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a. coarse

75%

11%

14%

Seasalt

Soil

Industry

b. fine

27%

20%28%

21%4%

Seasalt

Soil

Smoke

Industry

Bromine

Source apportionment of coarse and fine particulate matter from an urban site in the Wellington region (IBA)

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ConclusionsNATs (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.