BS ISO 15202-3:2004

Workplace air. Determination of metals and metalloids in airborne particulate matter by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry. Analysis | Status: Confirmed, Current

1 Scope This part of ISO 15202 specifies a procedure for the use of inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry for analysing test solutions prepared as prescribed in ISO 15202-2 from samples of airborne particulate matter collected as specified in ISO 15202-1. Method development, performance checks and a routine analysis method are specified. This part of ISO 15202 is applicable for the assessment of workplace exposure to metals and metalloids for comparison with limit values (see e.g. EN 689[1], ASTM E 1370[2], etc.). The following is a non-exclusive list of metals and metalloids for which limit values have been set (see Reference [3]), and for which one or more of the sample dissolution methods specified in ISO 15202-2 and the analytical procedure described in this part of ISO 15202 are applicable. However, there is no information available on the effectiveness of any of the sample dissolution methods specified in ISO 15202-2 for those elements in italics. aluminium calcium magnesium selenium tungsten antimony chromium manganese silver uranium arsenic cobalt mercury sodium vanadium barium copper molybdenum strontium yttrium beryllium hafnium nickel tantalum zinc bismuth indium phosphorus tellurium zirconium boron iron platinum thallium caesium lead potassium tin cadmium lithium rhodium titanium

NOTE ISO 15202 is not applicable to determination of elemental mercury, since mercury vapour is not collected using the sampling method specified in ISO 15202-1.

The procedure is suitable for assessment of exposure against the long-term exposure limits for most of the metals and metalloids listed above when sampling at a typical flow rate of 2 l·min−1 for sampling times in the range 30 min to 8 h and for assessment of exposure against the short-term exposure limits, where applicable (see 10.4). The procedure suffers from no significant spectral interferences (see 10.5), provided that suitable analytical wavelengths are used. However, inaccurate background correction and/or inadequate matrix-matching can adversely affect results.