Chemistry Department, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Legon, Accra, Ghana.
Chemosphere. 2011 Jan;82(1):103-6. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2010.09.063. Epub 2010 Nov 2.
Although polychlorinated biphenyls have never been manufactured in Ghana, it has been used extensively as dielectric fluid in electric transformers and capacitors. However, very little is known of its health and environmental impacts by both managers of these transformers and capacitors and also the general public. This work therefore seeks to explore INAA as a possible alternative to screening transformer oils for PCBs by determining the total chlorine content. The total chlorine content of transformer oil samples from Ghana that tested positive and some randomly selected samples that tested negative from screening using CLOR-N-OIL test kits, have had their total chlorine estimated. INAA using the Research Reactor located at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission was used to estimate the total chlorine content of the oil samples. Neutron Activation and gamma ray spectroscopy using HPGe detector coupled to MAESTRO 32 software was used to determine the total chlorine content by integrating the peak area of the spectrum into a simplified program that was developed from the activation equation. Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis was able to validate the result obtained from the test kits screening with accuracy 7.5%. The minimum total chlorine content of the positive samples determined by NAA was 71.34 μg g⁻¹.
尽管多氯联苯从未在加纳制造过，但它被广泛用作电力变压器和电容器的电介质。然而，这些变压器和电容器的管理者以及普通公众都对其健康和环境影响知之甚少。因此，这项工作旨在探索通过测定总氯含量，用 INAA 替代筛选变压器油中的多氯联苯。对使用 CLOR-N-OIL 试剂盒筛选呈阳性的加纳变压器油样本和一些随机选择的呈阴性的样本的总氯含量进行了估计。使用加纳原子能源委员会的研究反应堆进行了 INAA，以估计油样的总氯含量。使用 HPGe 探测器与 MAESTRO 32 软件耦合的中子激活和伽马射线光谱法，通过将光谱的峰面积积分到从激活方程开发的简化程序中，确定总氯含量。仪器中子活化分析能够以 7.5%的准确度验证试剂盒筛选的结果。通过 NAA 确定的阳性样本的最低总氯含量为 71.34μg g⁻¹。
