Comparative determination of bromine and iodine in three air sampling media via instrumental thermal and epithermal neutron activation analysis

A comparative determination of bromine and iodine in three distinct air sampling media by instrumental thermal and epithermal neutron activation analysis is presented. Open ocean air samples from the mid-Atlantic region were collected on ultra-pure nylon, Nuclepore, and activated charcoal substrates. The bromine and iodine content of each substrate was determined by both epithermal and thermal activation techniques. Good agreement was found within most thermal-epithermal pairs. Relative to thermal activation procedure, the epithermal technique yields peak/background ratio improvements ranging from a factor of 1.30 to 9.5. Nylon substrates showed the smallest improvement at 1.30 and both Nuclepore and activated charcoal substrates showed improvement factors of 6.7 and 9.5 for bromine and iodine, resp. (author)