Air quality study of Islamabad: preliminary results

Multiple ionization state of Arq+ ions during collisions near the Bohr velocity

In order to clarify the mechanism and the influence of the initial charge state and target atomic parameters for the formation of L-shell multiple ionization state of Ar^q+ ions produced by the collisions near the Bohr velocity, the k-shell x-ray emission of Ar is measured for 1.2 MeV Ar^{q+(q=4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12)} ions impacting on V target and 3 MeV Ar¹¹⁺ ions interacting with selected targets (Z₂ = 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30). It is found that the measured Ar Kα and Kβ x-ray energies shift to the high energy side, and the relative intensity ratios of Kβ/Kα are enlarged than the atomic data, owing to the presence of out-shell multiple vacancies. The multiple ionization is almost independence of the projectile charge state, but is diminished with increasing target atomic number.

Source apportionment using reconstructed mass calculations

A long-term study was undertaken to investigate the air quality of the Islamabad/Rawalpindi area. In this regard fine and coarse particulate matter were collected from 4 sites in the Islamabad/Rawalpindi region from 1998 to 2010 using Gent samplers and polycarbonate filters and analyzed for their elemental composition using the techniques of Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), Proton Induced X-ray Emission/Proton Induced Gamma-ray Emission (PIXE/PIGE) and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) Spectroscopy. The elemental data along with the gravimetric measurements and black carbon (BC) results obtained by reflectance measurement were used to approximate or reconstruct the particulate mass (RCM) by estimation of pseudo sources such as soil, smoke, sea salt, sulfate and black carbon or soot. This simple analysis shows that if the analytical technique used does not measure important major elements then the data will not be representative of the sample composition and cannot be further utilized for source apportionment studies or to perform transboundary analysis. In this regard PIXE/PIGE and XRF techniques that can provide elemental compositional data for most of the major environmentally important elements appear to be more useful as compared to NAA. Therefore %RCM calculations for such datasets can be used as a quality assurance (QA) measure to treat data prior to application of chemometrical tools such as factor analysis (FA) or cluster analysis (CA).

Instrumental neutron activation analysis for the study of size-fractionated airborne particulate matter samples

In order to devise methodology to study various environmental matrices 28 pairs of coarse and fine air particulate samples were collected in the vicinity of an automotive workshop located at Tasmasipabad on Chaklala Road, Rawalpindi. The samples were collected using a Gent sampler and polycarbonate filters during the period 7 to 27 April 2009. These samples were analyzed using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) using the low power Pakistan Atomic Research Reactor-2 (PARR-2). Reference materials (RMs) IAEA-SL1 and IAEA-S7 were used for calibration and quality assurance (QA) purpose. The gravimetric data for these samples were found to exceed the PM2.5 and PM10 national limits. Up to 34 elements were measured using the INAA optimized procedure.