Influence of filter thickness on PESA calibration

Elemental analysis of air particulate matter collected on Teflon filters using ion beam analysis (IBA) allows simultaneous analysis of the hydrogen content. Hydrogen is determined by a method known as particle elastic scattering analysis (PESA). The hydrogen concentration in the air particulate matter samples is determined by comparing the ratio of the hydrogen peak yield to the yields from standards of known hydrogen composition. The study presented in this paper shows that this process can be inaccurate if the calibration standards used are of different thicknesses compared to the air pollution samples. A series of experiments were undertaken to investigate the effect of sample and standard thickness on the determination of hydrogen concentrations. It was found that the filter thickness and the distribution of the air particulate matter within the filter significantly affected the yield of the hydrogen peak in the PESA spectra. Therefore, it is important to consider the effect of thickness and the distribution of the hydrogen in both the calibration standards and the sample filters for PESA analysis.