COMPARATIVE-STUDIES ON METAL DETERMINATION IN AIRBORNE-PARTICULATES BY LA-ICP-MS AND FURNACE ATOMIZATION NONTHERMAL EXCITATION SPECTROMETRY

Air pollution, especially by metallic aerosols, has toxic effects on s oil and water, biological environment, and human health. Therefore the determination of metal contents in airborne dust is of particular rel evance. For measurements with high resolution in time and space a rapi d analytical method is necessary as well as short and efficient sampli ng. Two techniques for rapid multielement trace analysis were compared with respect to the determination of metallic, aerosol concentration in air. In both methods air was sucked through a filter material which subsequently was analyzed without any additional pretreatment. When L a-ICP-MS was applied, quartz fibre filters were used as collectors whi ch were then ablated employing a Nd: YAG laser for analyses by ICP-MS. With FANES a special porous graphite tube acted as an efficient parti cle collector. When inserted into the FANES source the graphite tube s imultaneously serves as thermal atomizer and hollow cathode so that co llected particulates were vaporized and excited in the tube for optica l emission spectrometry. For signal registration an echelle polychroma tor was used. With FANES detection limits based on the 3 sigma-criteri on range between 0.2 and 2 ng/m3 for 10 elements. With quartz filters comparable results can be obtained only after enrichment by more than a 500-fold air volume. Measured metallic aerosol concentrations in amb ient air by both methods do not differ within the 95% significance lev el.