Use of FTIR spectroscopy coupled with ATR for the determination of atmospheric compounds

Attenuated total reflection Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (ATR–FTIR) can be successfully used for the quantitative determination of small amounts of pollutants like the organic fraction of aerosols. The relation between sample concentration and reflectance is described by the Kubelka–Munk equation and was found to be linearly proportional to the absorption band of some functional group. Several parameters like the matter of solid matrix, the cleaning of the sampling support, the treatment of reflectance spectra and the base line correction considerably influenced the reflectance spectra and facilitated data interpretations. The feasibility of the ATR–FTIR was evaluated by the monitoring of specific organic group bands on filters collected in the French cities of Grenoble and Clermont-Ferrand. We have obtained for hydroxyl group a calibration curve by plotting the relative intensity of reflectance versus the concentration. The linearity was obtained for OH from 1 × 10−1 to 1 × 100 mol L−1 with r2 = 0.9959. We can consider that for a direct measurement of the intensity of reflectance, it is possible to perform quantitative ATR–FTIR organic group analysis.