Premium
A modified background‐ratio method for x‐ray fluorescence analysis of soil and plant materials
Author(s) -
Livingstone L. G.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
x‐ray spectrometry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.447
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1097-4539
pISSN - 0049-8246
DOI - 10.1002/xrs.1300110212
Subject(s) - calibration , analyte , matrix (chemical analysis) , x ray fluorescence , analytical chemistry (journal) , mass spectrometry , computational physics , physics , optics , materials science , fluorescence , mathematics , statistics , chemistry , chromatography , composite material , quantum mechanics
The isolated atom model of x‐ray scatter has been used to develop a new analytical strategy for internal standardization in x‐ray fluorescence spectrometry. The method defines quantitatively by how much and within what limitations various background‐ratio calibration techniques can improve results for particular elements in specific materials. The analytical strategy is based on a modified peak to background ratio equation, where the background intensity is raised by an exponent T . The variable T combines as special cases all existing analytical strategies which use scattered x‐rays, together with the basic linear calibration where T =0. Variation in T was evaluated using extensive computer processing of matrix data for typical soil and plant materials. It was found that T varied with analyte, scatter wavelength and the matrix component contributing to the mass absorption error. Most existing methods using a background‐ratio technique are shown to be improved by using a value of T other than the previously assumed unity or zero.