Emission spectrographic determination of trace elements in airborne particulate matter collected on glass fiber filter.

An emission spectrographic method is described to determine the concentrations of beryllium, cadmium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, manganese, nickel, tin, and vanadium, in airborne particulate matter collected on a glass fiber filter. Sample disks punched out from the glass fiber filter are packed in a shallow cratered electrode; an internal standard solution containing indium and cobalt is added and the disks are decomposed with sulfuric acid-hydrofluoric acid. A calcium fluoride-graphite mixture is added as a spectroscopic buffer before d.c. are excitation. The precision of the method is better than ± 18%.