METHOD OF DETECTING SULPHATE POLLUTION OF SNOW COVER (VERSIONS) AND DEVICE FOR TAKING SNOW SAMPLES WITH SURFACE FROST Russian patent published in 2009 - IPC G01N1/20 

FIELD: chemistry.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to environmental protection and is meant for detecting sulphate pollution of the snow cover. The device for taking snow samples has a sampler, made in form of horizontal and vertical plates, rigidly attached to each other. On the inner side of the horizontal plate, two guides are attached for mounting a knife-tray. The knife-tray is in proportion to the horizontal plate and is in form of a rectangular box without the rear wall and its bottom has a sharp outer edge. On the outer side of the lateral walls of the knife-tray there are longitudinal bars for moving it into the snow wall along the guides. The device has a set of knife-trays, where the height of the lateral wall of each subsequent knife-tray is greater than that of the previous wall. The number of knife-trays in a set depends on the height of the snow cover. The method of detecting sulphate pollution of the snow cover involves taking samples, melting the snow and determining its sulphate content. Detection is done based on snow, associated with frost condensation of sulphates from the air-ground interface. The samples are taken from the top layer of snow with surface frost. Monitoring of pollution of the snow cover with sulphates is done based on their concentration in the top snow layer, parallel to increase in snow mass. The samples can be taken in layers, while establishing the history of surface pollution of the snow cover by comparing changes in concentration measurements of sulphates on the surface of the snow cover with the lower-lying layers of snow.

EFFECT: possibility of monitoring pollution of the snow surface.

4 cl, 1 dwg, 3 tbl