Geological materials, analytical chemistry

Recent advances in accelerator technology have reduced the cost and size of an RBS instrument to equal to or less than many other analytical instruments, and the development of dedicated RBS systems has resulted in increasing application of the technique, especially in industry, to areas of materials science, chemistry, geology, and biology, and also in the realm of particle physics. However, due to its historical segregation into physics rather than analytical chemistry, RBS still is not as readily available as some other techniques and is often overlooked as an analytical tool. 

Balaram, V. (1996). Recent trends in the instrumental analysis of rare earth elements in geological and industrial materials. Trends in Analytical Chemistry 15 475 486. 

Lichte, F.E., Meier, A. L., and Crock, J. G. (1987). Determination of the rare-earth elements in geological materials by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Analytical Chemistry 59 1150-1157. 

Sample analyses were carried out by a number of laboratories. We are grateful to Mr. Mark E. Peden and Ms. Loretta M. Skowron of the Water Survey s Analytical Chemistry Laboratory Unit for atomic absorption spectrophotometry, Mr. L. R. Henderson of the Illinois State Geological Survey for X-ray Fluorescence specto-scopy, and Dr. T. A. Cahill of the University of Califomia-Davis for elemental analysis. Mr. R. G. Semonin reviewed the manuscript. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ATM-7724294, and by the Department of Energy, Division of Biomedical and Environmental Research, under Contract No. EY-76-S-02-1199. 

Although care must always be exercised to avoid undue exposure to various radioisotopes, these materials have found wide acceptance in analytical chemistry, medicine, radiocarbon and other radioelement dating (geology, archaeology, etc.), and other special situations—for example, as a fuel source in spacecraft. 

There are many journals that publish articles on atomic emission spectroscopy. Analytical Chemistry, Applied Spectroscopy, Spectrochimica Acta Part B, and The Analyst publish articles on atomic emission spectroscopy as well as other analytical methods. The Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry is a more focused journal, as the name implies. Applications articles that use atomic emission spectroscopy for analysis of specific materials may be found in journals related to the field of application, such as geology, agriculture, food science, pharmaceutical science, polymer science, and the like. 

The scope of this branch of chemistry encompasses both the fundamental understanding of how to measure properties and amounts of chemicals, and the practical understanding of how to implement such measurements, including the design of the necessary instruments. The need for analytical measurements arises in all research disciplines, industrial sectors, and human activities that entail the need to know not only the identities and amounts of chemical components in a mixture, but also how they are distributed in space and time. These sectors of need include research in specific disciplines (such as chemistry, physics, materials science, geology, archeology, medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry) and in interdisciplinary areas (such as forensic, atmospheric, and environmental sciences), as well as the needs of government policy, space exploration, and commerce. 

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