FEASIBILITY OF USING INAA FOR BIOMONITORING OF HEAVY-METALS AND OTHERELEMENTS IN HUMAN ECTODERM DERIVATIVES

For systematic checking of the feasibility of determining elements by INAA in scalp hair, pubic hair and toenails, three different regimes w ere employed by varying the activation time and cooling time prior to gamma-ray spectrometric measurements. The combination of these three r egimes (activation time 1 min, cooling time 10 min; activation time 5 h, cooling time 5 d; activation time 5 h, cooling time 30 d) made it p ossible to determine the following 20 elements in most samples: Al, As , Br, Ca, Ce, Cl, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, I, K, La, Mn, Na, S, Sb, Se, Zn. Further 10 elements (Ba, Cd, Mo, Ni Rb, Sc, Sm, Th, V, W) were detect able only in some samples, however, with a fairly good precision, so t hat they could be detected in this way in the case of elevated concent rations exceeding physiological limits.