Monitoring of chromium, copper and arsenic in contaminated soils using thick-target PIXE

Soil contamination by toxic metal ions is one of the most serious environmental problems today. In this work soil samples from an area where a wood preservation plant has been active were studied, Chromium. copper and arsenic (CCA) are the main metal ions used in preservation of lumber. For the monitoring of these metal ions and of other elements in soil, thick-target PIXE (TTPIXE) has been proved to be a successful method, About 20 elements were quantitatively determined in the soil samples from the contaminated area and from a reference area, The reliability of the results was evaluated by analysing geochemical certified reference materials (CRMs) of chemical compositions similar to the soil samples. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.