METHOD OF EVALUATING AIR POLLUTION BY HEAVY METALS AND OTHER CHEMICAL ELEMENTS USING EPIPHYTIC MOSS Russian patent published in 2012 - IPC G01N23/222 G01N21/62 

FIELD: chemistry.

SUBSTANCE: moss samples are collected from the bark of old aspen; the material obtained after homogenisation is divided into two parts, and each part is used to prepare 5-10 duplicate representative samples; one part of the representative samples undergoes atomic emission spectrometry to determine concentration of chemical elements in each sample; the other part of representative samples is exposed to a thermal neutron flux for not more than 5 hours; measurement of specific activity of each sample is carried out after activity decay of Na²⁴ to a safe level; air pollution is determined by comparing the obtained concentrations of chemical elements in representative samples from the investigated territory with representative moss samples collected on a background territory with natural climatic conditions similar to those of the investigated territory, and lying at a distance of more than 100 km from industrial centres in a direction opposite to that of prevailing winds.

EFFECT: possibility of evaluating pollution of air in industrial centres and other vast areas by heavy metals and other chemical elements.

4 cl, 3 tbl, 4 dwg