Light-element sensitive in-air millibeam PIXE setup for fast measurement of atmospheric aerosol samples

Abstract

A novel in-air PIXE (Particle Induced X-ray Emission) setup was developed which is capable of the fast, sensitive, fully quantitative characterization of elemental composition of thin and thick samples for elements with Z > 6.

Source apportionment of PM2.5 before and after COVID-19 lockdown in an urban-industrial area of the Lisbon metropolitan area, Portugal

“…The PIXE measurements were performed in He atmosphere (2 l/min flow rate), which enables the detection of X-rays down to 0.35 keV on the UTW SDD. Detailed description of the setup can be found in Aljboor et al (2023) . PIXE spectra was evaluated with the GUPIXWIN program code ( Campbell et al, 2010 ) handling the samples as ‘thin’ specimen.…”

Atomic spectrometry update – a review of advances in environmental analysis

“…This approach was preferable to alternatives that employed lenses to focus test aerosols as thin jets into a low-pressure chamber because ambient pressure conditions were maintained throughout ensuring that the thermodynamic state of the particles was controllable from generation to analysis. At the ATOMKI accelerator centre in Hungary, a new PIXE setup, equipped with a large angle SDD detector installed in an external beam-line, made it possible 44 to process batches of 100–200 aerosol filter samples in 10–12 h. Analysis of NIST SRM 2783 (air particulate on filter media) gave results within ±5% of certified values. The LODs were <10 ng cm −2 for many elements of interest when samples were deposited onto quartz, polycarbonate or PTFE filter media.…”