CHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND INDUSTRIAL PARTICULATESAMPLES

The characterization of particles, especially aerosol particles, is of great importance to many scientific fields, A relevant brief overview is given, A rigorous scheme of sampling and in-depth characterization of particulate samples has been developed in the authors' laboratorie s and by collaborative groups, including investigations by the followi ng techniques: total reflection X-ray fluorescence spectrometry for qu antitative bulk characterization; solid-state speciation by valence ba nd X-ray spectrometry using electron microprobe or Mossbauer spectrome try (only bulk particle characterization possible); scanning electron microscopy and electron probe microanalysis for automatic semiquantita tive single particle characterization of particles greater than or equ al to 0.5 mu m; transmission electron microscopy for semiquantitative single particle characterization of particles with diameters down to 1 0 nm; high resolution-scanning electron microscopy, which is also capa ble of characterizing particles morphologically and qualitatively down to 10 nm in diameter; secondary ion mass spectrometry for the study o f trace elemental distributions and isotopic ratios in particles with diameters above 1 mu m, It is the aim of this paper to show the advant ages and characteristics of this scheme of analysis to match today's r equirements for topochemical methods of analysis. For this purpose a s hort overview of these methods for particle characterization is also p resented.