Speaker
Description
The Ural Mountains are a very interesting region for climate research on Earth. This mountain range runs north-south more than 2500 km from the Arctic Ocean to the Eurasian Steppe belt. Being the conventional boundary between Europe and Asia, the Urals are also the endpoint of climatic effects, caused by the Atlantic or Siberian air masses. Since Ancient times the region is world-known for its natural resources, mineral production, gold and gem mines, earned the «treasure box» fame. Today the biggest titanium and uranium production capacities are located here too. However, the large number of industrial facilities left their imprint on the regional ecology, with the Kyshtym disaster (1957) as the worse highlight, led to the formation of the East Ural Natural Reserve – the exclusion zone due to the radioactive contamination.
Anthropogenic aerosols are one of the main objects for ecological studies. Emitted by an industrial facility, they can be spread over a long distance, presenting a danger to the environment and to the population. To obtain the most realistic assessment of the associated health risks, it is promising to investigate the distribution of chemical composition over the surface and in the volume of aerosol particles. The new setup for laser resonance ionization secondary neutral mass spectrometry (rL-SNMS) at the Ural Federal University can be used for this purpose, and moreover, to compile an atlas of aerosol microparticles related to a specific regional production facility. To define a particular fingerprint of the aerosol origin, it is intended to focus on the content of rare-earth elements (REE) and their location in the structure of microparticles. For instance, the concentration ratio of light to heavy REEs is a good marker for anthropogenic sources, but, due to the trace amount of REEs in aerosol samples, this topic remains scarcely investigated. The resent developments in resonance ionization mass spectrometry can overcome this issue, providing a high sensitivity even to ultra-trace concentration of REEs. The status of the rL-SNMS machine in Yekaterinburg as well as the concept of the aerosol research program is going to be presented.
| Workshop Themes | Sample analysis and standards |
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