PIXE SYSTEM AND ITS APPLICATION TO AEROSOL ANALYSIS

It has been shown in the last decade that PIXE (proton induced X-ray emission) is a very effective method for aerosol analysis because it has high sensitivity, can analyze many elements simultaneously, and is fast and inexpensive. A PIXE system has been established in this laboratory in 1984 for atmospheric aerosol analysis. The aerosol samples were collected from different regions, including some environmentally clean places as Tibet, the State Forest Park Zhangjiajie (Hunan province), the Great Wall station (South Pole), and some industrially developed regions in the northern part of China. The aerosol samples can be analyzed by this method for more than twenty elements. The element concentrations of the samples from different regions have been compared. 8 refs., 6 figs., 1 tab.