Oct2017
XRF E-Newsletter
Volume 25.
October 2017 - detailing XRF events and news.
Dear XRF subscriber,
Welcome to the Twenty-fifth issue of the British Crystallographic Association (BCA) Industrial Group dedicated XRF Newsletter.
NEXT XRF Meeting will be on 13th June 2018
The meeting and exhibition will be held at Sheffield Hallam University. Put this date in your diary now! We are looking to attract user and academic talks at this meeting, so now is the time to get your thinking cap on and figure out how you can put together an interesting talk on your work. Please offer your talk at this meeting by contacting any committee member or reply to this mailing.
Keep an eye on the meeting page for regular updates.
2017 Meeting report.
See the report and photographs from our 14th June 2017 meeting at the University of Leicester: 2017 Meeting Report
A final review of DOT sample results - an insight into real life XRF.
Ros Schwarz, retired, former BCA IG XRF committee chair and DOT sample coordinator.
A summary.See the full report (227kb PDF file)...
The DOT-1 samples have provided an insight into recent XRF practice. Participants used a wide variety of fluxes for fused beads and binders for pellets and a range of sample to flux/binder ratios.
There was a contrast between the reliability of results from pressed powders for the aluminosilicate (DOT-1) and the gypsum rock (DOT-3) samples, illustrating "mineralogical effects". For metallic materials, exemplified by ferroalloys (DOT-4), powder methods are not suitable for quantification.
Analysing unknown samples without covering as much of the periodic table as possible can lead not only to elements being missed, but also to superficially convincing false positives, as in DOT-2.
Proficiency test (GeoPT) results for a basalt sample (WG-1) showing discrepancies between XRF and ICP-MS figures were considered. There can be issues with the dissolution of refractory oxides which will lead to incorrectly low figures for ICP-MS, exemplified by Sn in DOT-1. However, when approaching the limit of quantification, there are significant factors that degrade precision in XRF that are not reflected in a simple calculation of uncertainty from net line intensity.
Two NEW additions to our page of links to all things XRF.
1. How to choose the right film for your liquid specimens.
2. A presentation using slides -An Introduction to EDXRF Dr Pete Palmer, San Francisco State University.
Click here...and follow the first two entries under Information.