Atmospheric particles sampling and inorganic analysis

The physicochemical characterisation and determination of atmospheric parti cle composition requires two major steps: sampling and chemical analysis. T he adequacy between the characteristics of the sample and the analytical te chnique is essential. In this paper; different analytical processes to char acterise the global composition and especially the inorganic part of the at mospheric particulate matter are discussed The potentiality of surface anal ysis such as XPS applied to particle characterisation is also presented.