Developing Reference Materials for XRF

PI:  Ann Dillner, Post-doctoral Fellow: Hege Indresand

Calibration standards used for X-Ray Flourescense (XRF) analysis to obtain elemental composition of particulate matter filters are typically made of one or two elements sputtered onto a substrate.  These standards are dissimilar to particulate matter filters in several ways including,

• the standards are not made of particles,
• the standards have one or a few elements on them,
• often the mass range is much higher than PM samples,
• the substrate is not teflon.

In this research, we have developed an aerosol generation and sampling system (see below) to create reference materials of known composition and mass of particulate matter samples on teflon filters.

We have used the chamber to create pure, stoichiometric reference materials for one and two elements and we have used the chamber to create filters to investigate spectral interferences. Click on the two references below for more information.

Indresand, H., Trzepla-Nabaglo, K., Perley, B. P. , White, W. H. McDade, C. E., Dillner, A.M., Generation and Applications of Teflon Filter Reference Materials for IMPROVE XRF Elemental Analysis, poster presentation at the 2009 American Association for Aerosol Research, Minneapolis, MN.

Dillner, A.M.  The IMPROVE Aerosol Generation and Sampling System and XRF Analysis, presentation at the 2009 IMPROVE Steering Committee Meeting, Wind Cave, SD.