PIXE and PIGE techniques for the analysis of Antarctic ice dust and continental sediments

Abstract

An analytical procedure has been implemented in this work for an accurate geochemical characterization and quantitative analysis of the fine dust (particles diameter < 5 lm) trapped in Antarctic ice cores and the fine fraction of potential source areas (PSA) sediments by size selection, filtering and PIXE-PIGE combined measurements. The underestimation of concentrations of the lighter elements, like Na, Mg, Al and Si, due to X-ray self-absorption inside each individual aerosol particle, was also evaluated and the analytical overall accuracy tested by means of measurements performed on size selected certified mineral standards.

Chemical characterisation of iron in dust and biomass burning aerosols during AMMA-SOP0/DABEX: implication for iron solubility

“…PIXE spectra were fitted using the GUPIX code and elemental concentrations were obtained via a calibration curve from a set of thin standards (Chiari et al, 2005); it should be noted that the concentrations of light elements, such as Al, may be somewhat underestimated due to X-rays self-absorption inside aerosol particles (Marino et al, 2008). A two-step thermal method was applied for the separation and the analysis of black and organic carbon aerosol contents (BC and OC, respectively).…”

Medicinal Plants: Their Anti-Diabetic Potential

“…of Comm. NIST Gaithersburg MD 20899) were also prepared with the same procedure to check the accuracy of PIXE-PIGE setup and verification of the results 13 . PIXE and PIGE measurements were performed at Surface and Profile Measurement Laboratory at National Centre for Compositional Characterization of Materials (NCCCM), Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) Hyderabad, Government of India using 3MV Tandetron accelerator.…”

“Total IBA” – Where are we?

“…The inclusion of PIGE [64] is important as many applications make use of PIGE to detect the important light elements F, Na, Mg which are troublesome for both BS and PIXE. We have already mentioned atmospheric pollution studies: cultural heritage studies [65] and geo-archaeometry [66] are among others that also systematically use PIGE, for which the IAEA has recently announced a Coordinated Research Proposal [67]. "Total IBA" for cultural heritage and similar samples now regularly uses PIXE/BS/PIGE (see [68] for example), although the analysis of the different techniques is not yet usually integrated.…”