In order to develop the municipal air surveillance systems,
Ni and V in airborne particulates, which are emitted by
combustion of fossil fuel, can be employed as suitable
index
species. The ultra-trace determinations of these
elements
down to subnanograms per cubic meter of air in airborne
particulate matrices have been successfully achieved
with a coupled scheme of reversed-phase liquid chroma
tography and a spectrophotometric detection. The precolumn (off-line) chelation reagents, aroylhydrazones
having
O,N,O and N,N,O donor sets are appropriate to V and Ni,
respectively, in terms of the specificity for these ions,
which assures extraordinary suitability to the airborne
particulate matrices being free from the interferences
notably
by Al and Fe. The detection limits (3 σ basis) of
the
methods reach down to 10 pg for V and 30 pg for Ni in 0.1-mL injections. The monitoring data of these elements
in
air samples collected in Sendai City, Japan, are reported.
Even in less polluted air, V is accurately detected in
the
range of 1.5−3.5 ng/m3 with a short sampling period for
only
24 h (ca. 30 m3 air). The very low detection limit of
0.3
ng of V/m3 is demonstrated for the continuous monitoring
with
such small sampling volume.