Determination of the correlation between elemental and organic carbons to trace elemental substances and anions in DPM samples

Abstract

The focus of the entire project is to characterize diesel particulate matter from various mining commodities into its respective constituents and to further evaluate and outline the possible identified markers for better health engineering improvements and analysis techniques. Samples investigated were received from different mine commodities and were initially characterised for their diesel particulate matter content and trace elemental substances on a thermo-optical analyser and an inductively coupled plasma instruments respectively. For this phase of the project, the same samples were further analysed on a photometric anion analyser (Gallery instrument) for their respective anions constituents. The objective of this phase was to identify the correlation and possible effects of the concentrations of the diesel particulate matter (on elemental carbon EC and organic carbon OC), trace elemental substances and the measured anionic substances found in the diesel particulate matter samples that were investigated. Seven major anions were investigated and, the chloride, ortho-phosphate and sulphate anions were detected. An assumption was made for two samples V03 and V04 that a correlation exists between the detected diesel particulate matter (on elemental carbon EC and organic carbon OC) contents, trace elemental substances and the anions. Sample V03 indicated the presence of impurities such as sulphates, iron, zinc and sodium in the fuel used while sample V04 indicated a contamination such as phosphates due to wear and tear. However, the presence of some of the analses in the samples was assumed to could have been contributed by the sampling environment.