Welcome to INFN LABEC, the laboratory hosting the EMC2 (Elemental Mass Calibration Centre) unit of ECAC-CAIS.

The LABEC (laboratory of nuclear techniques for the environment and the Cultural Heritage) hosts the new ECAC-CAIS unit Elemental Mass Calibration Centre (EMC2). The main goal of EMC2 is to expand the duties to ACTRIS atmospheric observatories, in particular providing: proficiency tests of individual laboratory analysis through the organization of inter-comparison and round-robin exercises; operation support for quality assurance and quality control for the measurement of mass concentration of particulate heavy metals and inorganic elements; hands-on training of operators and scientists to NF and ACTRIS users. EMC2 will work with the aim of harmonizing the analyses of the elemental composition of atmospheric aerosol samples, in order to make data from different observatories fully comparable. The analysis of the elemental mass gives only part of the information with regard to the chemical composition, as it has to be complemented by measurements for, e.g., important ionic species (such as ammonium, nitrate), for organic carbon and elemental or black carbon. Nevertheless, the analysis of the elemental mass gives important information on several markers that may help in disentangling the contributions of different atmospheric aerosol sources, e.g. through the application of positive matrix factorization (PMF) analysis. The implementation of EMC2 services has been achieved through an infrastructural upgrade of LABEC thanks to the financial support of PER-ACTRIS-IT—“Potenziamento della componente italiana della Infrastruttura di Ricerca Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure” through the PON Ricerca e Innovazione FESR 2014–2020 project of the Italian Ministry of University and Research.

LABEC is located in the scientific campus just outside Florence (Italy), and it is jointly managed by researchers of INFN (National Institute for Nuclear Physics) and of the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Florence. LABEC is a high-qualified centre for the development of new technologies based on particle accelerators and ionizing radiations, and for their applications in environmental contexts and in heritage science. The laboratory is equipped with a “small” particle accelerator, namely a 3MV Tandetron produced by High Voltage Engineering Europe (see following picture). Without aiming at a comprehensive description of all the activities performed at LABEC, in this short contribution we aim at giving a short introduction of the laboratory in the field of the characterization of the elemental composition of aerosol samples collected on filters by Ion Beam Analysis (IBA) techniques (please visit the laboratory website for a wider look to LABEC, https://web.infn.it/labec/en).

Still curious about PIXE, LABEC and EMC2? For any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us!

Further, please get informed on the Opportunity to access EMC2 services through RADIATE Transnational Access (TA). Access is granted free of charge to the users who submit positively evaluated proposals; all the useful information can be found here: https://www.actris-ecac.eu/blog/?emc2--opportunity-to-access-emc2-services-through-radiate-transnational-access--ta-