Dust analysis

For quantitative interstellar dust analysis in the sub-pm range, a new secondary neutral mass spectrometer on the basis of a ToF-SIMS has been developed by Henkel et al.u The authors successfully combined a ToF-SIMS based upon the BIOTOF design15 with a laser SNMS to analyze... 

A lung cancer cluster was identified in steel mill workers who worked in the melt shop of an electric steel-making operationJ18 That mill cast carbon and specialty steels from scrap metals. The raw materials for the plant included automobile industry scrap, construction materials, and containers that were coated with oil-based and other organic materials. Flue dust analysis revealed the following hydrophilic compounds ... 

The second of the two tails, the dust tail, consists of tiny particles of matter expelled from the coma and nucleus by the Sun s radiative pressure. This tail is visible only because the particles of which it is composed reflect sunlight. The composition of cometary dust is thought to be similar to that of interstellar dust, but much remains to be learned about this portion of the comet s structure. In April 2003, NASA launched an experiment to obtain better data about the composition and structure of cometary dust. High-altitude research airplanes were flown through the upper atmosphere toward the tail of Comet Grigg-Skjellerup. Special collectors in the planes scooped up samples of the cometary dust. Analysis may take years. 

Malissa H (1976) Integrated dust analysis. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl 15 141-149. 

Source Apportionment Assume that for a rural site the measured PM 0 concentration is 32jig m-3 containing 2.58 pgm-3 Si and 3.84pgm 3Fe. The two major sources contributing to the location s particulate concentration are a coal-fired power plant and soil-related dust. Analysis of the emissions of these sources indicates that the soil contains 200 mg(Si) g (20% of the total emissions) and 32 mg(Fe) g 1 (3.2% of the total emissions), while the particles emitted by the power plant contain IOmg(Si)g (1%) and 150mg(Fe)g (15%). Neglecting Si and Ft contributions from other sources... 

The Pb dust analysis demonstrated the applicability of XAFS, p-XRF and p-XRD to determine the speciation of trace metals in heterogeneous samples. The X-ray techniques successfully identihed the speciation and potential sources of Pb in house dust samples, and provided an explanation for the observed high bioaccessibility. Linear combination fitting of the EXAFS i (k) k data of a Pb-elevated house dust sample show that Pb is complexed in two environments, as both a mineral (hydrocerussite) and an adsorbed species (adsorbed onto an iron oxide). The main findings from the Pb dust analysis can be summarized as follows ... 

McDonald JC, Case BW, Enterline PE, Henderson V, McDonald AC, Plourde M, Sebastien P (1990) Lung dust analysis in the assessment of past exposure of man-made mineral fiber workers. Ann Occup Hyg 34 427-441 McDonald JC, Sebastien P, Case B, McDonald AD, Dufresne A (1992) Ferruginous body counts in sputum as an index of past exposure to mineral fibers. Ann Occup Hyg 36 271-282... 

Coedo, A. G., Dorado,T., Padilla, 1., Maibusch, R., and Kuss, H. M. (2000). Slurry sampling electrothermal vaporization inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for steelmaking flue dust analysis. Spectrochim.Acta, Part B 55(2), 185-196. 

There are three commonly used analytic methods for dust analysis XRF, flame AAS, and ICP. Preliminary results show that these methods are comparable, although not fully interchangeable. All three methods have acceptable detection limits and sensitivity, and they are linear within the normal range of environmental samples, although dilutions are usually required for the flame AAS method. Sample preparation and extraction procedures have not been standardized for any of the analytic methods. 

Several commercially available spot test kits give semiquantitative results for lead in environmental samples, but these have not been fully evaluated for dust. There is at least one rhodozonate-based kit that, when used properly, gives a positive red or pink eolor in the presence of lead in dust. It is likely that other kits can be adapted to dust analysis, but some modifications may be required. 

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