Environmental Pollutants Monitoring Network Using Nuclear Techniques

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) in collaboration with the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA), Pacific Power and the Universities of NSW and Macquarie has established a large area fine aerosol sampling network covering nearly 60,000 square kilometres of NSW with 25 fine particle samplers . This network known as ASP commenced sampling on 1 July 1991. The cyclone sampler at each site has a 2.5 mum particle diameter cut off and samples for 24 hours using a stretched Teflon filter for each day. Accelerator based Ion Beam Analysis (IBA) techniques are well suited to analyse the thousands of filter papers a year that originate from such a large scale aerosol sampling network. These techniques are fast multi-elemental and, for the most part, nondestructive so other analytical methods such as neutron activation and ion chromatography can be performed afterwards. Currently ANSTO receives 300 filters/ month from this network for analysis using its accelerator based ion beam techniques on a 3 MV Van de Graaff accelerator. One week a month of accelerator time is dedicated to this analysis. This paper describes the four simultaneous accelerator based IBA techniques used at ANSTO, to analyse for the following 24 elements H, C, N, O, F, Na, Al, Si, P, S, CI, K, Ca, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Cu, Ni, Co, Zn, Br and Pb. Each analysis requires only a few minutes of accelerator running time to complete.