Part VIII. External beam analysis
Trace element analysis in biological materials by external beam PIXE☆

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Abstract

The problem of quantitative analysis of trace elements in biological materials has been investigated using the external beam PIXE method. The targets were prepared as pellets, 1-mm thick and 7-mm diameter, using a stainless steel hand-press pellet maker and irradiated with 2 MeV protons. In this method, the use of multielement standards for calibration and the effect of variability of the matrix on the results have been studied. For a 20 μC irradiation, the detection limit of the method in the region of Cu was found to be about 0.1 ppm. The sources of errors in the method are identified and their extent is evaluated to be about 15% in worst cases. The applicability of the method has been established by analyzing eight elements (K, Ca, Fe, Cu, Zn, Br, Rb and Pb) in human whole blood samples. In a comparative study with spectrophotometric measurements of Zn in blood, the results were found to agree within experimental errors as predicted by calculations.

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☆

Supported in part by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria.

∗∗

Author to whom all correspondence should be made.

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Copyright © 1981 Published by Elsevier B.V.