Ashing and microwave digestion of aerosol samples with a polypropylene fibrous filter matrix

Radionuclide monitoring is one of the key techniques required by the International Monitoring System (IMS) and On-Site Inspection (OSI) in the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). There shall be a global network of 80 radionuclide monitoring stations. Atmospheric aerosols are collected generally on filters in the stations. A polypropylene (PP) fibrous filter is often used in sampling atmospheric aerosols. There might be much information to be obtained by measuring aerosol samples after digestion rather than nondestructive analysis directly by γ-spectrometry. The present work focused on pretreatment of the filter samples, which includes the influence of different ashing or microwave digestion conditions on the recoveries of analytes. The inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometric detection results indicated that the recoveries of elements in the PP fibrous filters by ashing were influenced by ashing time, temperature and the properties of the elements. High recoveries of volatile elements and consistent recovery for other elements were obtained by using a closed microwave system to digest the filters. Higher sensitivity was also obtained when the intercomparison sample was measured by a HPGe well detector after pretreatment by the recommended ashing and microwave digestion procedures.