COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN INSTRUMENTAL NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS AND INDUCTIVELY COUPLED PLASMA-ATOMIC EMISSION SPECTROMETRY IN ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL SAMPLES

摘要

Elemental analysis of different environmental Certified Reference Materials (CRM) was carried out using Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) and Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES) followed by Microwave digestion. The determination of about 30 elements in CRMs using INAA has been achieved with high accuracy and precision. The relative error of most of the elements is within 10% and the standard deviation is less than 15%. Z-score as an analytical performance is also less than +-2. ICP-AES was also found as a suitable method for analysis of soil and hair samples. However, INAA was found more suitable than ICP-AES for the determination of elements in filter samples. On the other hand, INAA appeared inadequate for the analysis of Ca because of the low count rate, Both methods can be proposed as complementary methods for elemental analysis. A combination of these two methods may offer the most valuable information on elemental analysis. Multiple analyses of the same element using various methods would ensure the quality of the data.