Ion-Beam Analysis of Artificial Turf

In recent years, there have been considerable concerns that artificial turf, used in many playing fields throughout the world, may be unsafe. While the presence of heavy metals and carcinogenic chemicals have been reported in a number of studies, more data and research are needed to determine if there is a real link between artificial turf and adverse health effects. We performed PIXE and PIGE analysis on artificial turf blade and infill samples from Bailey Field at Union College to search for heavy metals and other possibly toxic substances. The samples were bombarded with proton beams from the 1.1-MV Pelletron tandem accelerator in the Union College Ion-Beam Analysis Laboratory and the emitted x-rays and gamma-rays were measured with Si drift and CdTe detectors, respectively. Some preliminary work on this project was performed using an external beam facility that we constructed from a beam pipe with an aluminum end cap supporting a ¼” diameter window made of 7.5-micron Kapton foil which allows us to analyze samples that cannot be put into the vacuum chamber. This paper will describe the development of the external beam facility and the analysis of the artificial turf samples, and present preliminary results.