Pixe Analysis of Water with Detection Limits in the PPB Range

The excellent sensitivity and broad range of the PIXE technique suggests that it can be an attractive method for the multielemental analysis of water. The basic nature of water samples however presents several challenges to the analist, in particular sample preparation, efficient data collection, and data analysis. The Purdue University PIXE system has been developed to overcome these difficulties. The system has been used to analyze a large number of samples where the concentration ratio of abundant to trace elements is as large as 106. Detection limits obtained for most elements are in the range 0.1 to 5 ppb.