Spectrochimica Acta Part B: Atomic Spectroscopy

This work investigates the analytical possibilities of high-resolution continuum source graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (HR CS GFAAS) for the direct determination of Pd, Pt and Rh (PGMs) in spent automobile catalysts. A novel approach for the microwave dissolution with the mixture of HCl and H2O2 (4:1) was developed for the further HR CS GFAAS. It was found that within 20 minutes at the temperature 210°C of the PGMs quantitatively and simultaneously transferred to solution. It did not show any matrix interferences in determining Pd and Rh, when using HR CS GFAAS for determining the PGMs. When determining Pt, the matrix effect can be expressly minimized by diluting the sample or applying a corrective model. Limits of quantification (μg L-1) by HR CS GFAAS achieved were 1 (Pd), 2 (Pt), and 0.5 (Rh). Correlation coefficients were 0.9973 (Pd), 0.9995 (Pt), and 0.9983 (Rh). The relative standards deviation for PGM determination by the developed procedure was not higher than 5 % in the concentration range 0.0005-0.5 % weight. Moreover, validation of the process of evaluation of metrological characteristics for the sample preparation method developed in this research, demonstrated that it is resistant to changes in the samples of spent automobile catalysts. The correctness of experimental results was assured by the optical emission with inductively coupled plasma method comparisons.

Averaged LIBS spectra of emeralds and steel coupons used in this study.

This file contains the Gaussian fitting results of the obtained spectra. And it also gives the caculated values of the high-lying excited states.

Raw data for Arctic sediments measured by LIBS, XRF, and ICP.

The present work aims to evaluate the alteration conditions of historical limestone rocks exposed to urban environment using the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) technique. The approach proposed is based on the microscale three dimensional (3D) compositional imaging of the sample through double-pulse micro-Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (DP-μLIBS) in conjunction with optical microscopy. DP-μLIBS allows to perform a quick and detailed in-depth analysis of the composition of the weathered artifact by creating a ‘virtual thin section’ (VTS) of the sample which can estimate the extent of the alteration processes occurred at the limestone surface. The DP-μLIBS analysis of these thin sections showed a reduction with depth of the elements (mainly Fe, Si and Na) originating from atmospheric dust, particulate deposition and the surrounding environment (due to the proximity of the sea), whereas, the LIBS signal of Ca increased in intensity from the black crust to the limestone underneath.

Double-pulse laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) measurements in water with up to 600 bar hydrostatic pressure and 150 mJ energy of each pulse were done to select a setup which promote separated spectral lines in the observed plasma emission even at elevated pressures, where line broadening until loss of the most spectral information can occur. For this a compact spectrometer und a Czerny-Turner spectrometer, both fiber-based, has been applied to investigate the dependence of the emitted radiation on different parameters and hydrostatic pressure. The spectral data with an exposure time of 100 ns was measured with a Roper Acton Spectra Pro 500i with connected PI-MAX2 camera, whereas the spectral data with an exposure time of 1 ms was measured with an Avantes AvaSpec ULS17502F-USB2 compact spectrometer.

XMI-MSIM is an open source tool designed for predicting the spectral response of energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometers using Monte-Carlo simulations. It comes with a fully functional graphical user interface in order to make it as user friendly as possible. Considerable effort has been taken to ensure easy installation on all major platforms. Development of this package was part of my PhD thesis. The algorithms were inspired by the work of my promotor Prof. Laszlo Vincze of Ghent University. Links to his and my own publications can be found in our manual. A manuscript has been published in Spectrochimica Acta Part B that covers the algorithms that power XMI-MSIM. Please include a reference to this publication in your own work if you decide to use XMI-MSIM for academic purposes. A second manuscript was published that covers our XMI-MSIM based quantification plug-in for PyMca. Soon information on using this plug-in will be added to the manual. XMI-MSIM is released under the terms of the GPLv3. Development occurs at Github: http://github.com/tschoonj/xmimsim Downloads are hosted by the X-ray Micro-spectroscopy and Imaging research group of Ghent University: http://lvserver.ugent.be/xmi-msim Version 5.0 release notes: Changes: Custom detector response function: build a own plug-in containing your own detector response function and load it at run-time to override the builtin routines. Instructions can be found in the manual. Escape peak improvements: new algorithm is used to calculate the escape peak ratios based on a combined brute-force and variance-reduction approach. Ensures high accuracy even at high incoming photon energies and thin detector crystals. Downside: it's slower… Removed maximum convolution energy option. Was a bit confusing anyway. Number of channels: moved from simulation controls into input-file Radionuclide support added: Now you can select one or more commonly used radionuclide sources from the X-ray sources widget. Advanced Compton scattering simulation: a new alternative implementation of the Compton scattering has been implemented based on the work of Fernandez and Scot (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2007.04.203), which takes into account unpopulated atomic orbitals. Provides an improved simulation of the Compton profile, as well as fluorescence contributions due to Compton effect (extremely low!), but slows the code down considerably. Advanced users only. Default: OFF Plot spectra before convolution in results Windows: new Inno Setup installers. Contains the headers and import libraries Windows: compilers changed to GCC 4.8.1 (TDM-GCC) Windows: rand_s used to generate seeds on 64-bit version (requires Vista or later) Windows: new gtk runtime for the 64-bit version (see also https://github.com/tschoonj/GTK-for-Windows-Runtime-Environment-Installer) Mac OS X: compilers changed to clang 5.1 (Xcode) and gfortran 4.9.1 (MacPorts) Original input-files from our 2012 publication (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sab.2012.03.011) added to examples Updater performs checksum verification after download X-ray sources last used values stored in preferences.ini xmimsimdata.h5 modified: even bigger now... Bugfixes: Windows: support for usernames with unicode characters. Fixed using customized builds of HDF5. Thanks to Takashi Omori of Techno-X for the report! Spectrum import from file fixes. Was never properly tested apparently Note: For those that compiled XMI-MSIM from source: you will need to regenerate the xmimsimdata.h5 file with xmimsim-db. Old versions of this file will not work with XMI-MSIM 5.0.

Quantitative estimate of elemental composition by spectroscopic and imaging techniques using X-ray fluorescence requires the availability of accurate data of X-ray interaction with matter. Although a wide number of computer codes and data sets are reported in literature, none of them is presented in the form of freely available library functions which can be easily included in software applications for X-ray fluorescence. This work presents a compilation of data sets from different published works and an xraylib interface in the form of callable functions. Although the target applications are on X-ray fluorescence, cross sections of interactions like photoionization, coherent scattering and Compton scattering, as well as form factors and anomalous scattering functions, are also available. xraylib provides access to some of the most respected databases of physical data in the field of x-rays. The core of xraylib is a library, written in ANSI C, containing over 40 functions to be used to retrieve data from these databases. This C library can be directly linked with any program written in C, C++ or Objective-C. Furthermore, the xraylib package contains bindings to several popular programming languages: Fortran 2003, Perl, Python, Java, IDL, Lua, Ruby, PHP and .NET, as well as a command-line utility which can be used as a pocket-calculator. Although not officially supported, xraylib has been reported to be useable from within Matlab and LabView. The source code is known to compile and run on the following platforms: Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD and Windows. Development occurs on Github: http://github.com/tschoonj/xraylib Downloads are hosted by the X-ray Micro-spectroscopy and Imaging research group of Ghent University: http://lvserver.ugent.be/xraylib Version 3.1.0 release notes: - Database of commonly used radionuclides for X-ray sources added (new API: GetRadioNuclideDataByName, GetRadioNuclideDataByIndex, GetRadioNuclideDataList and FreeRadioNuclideData) - numpy Python bindings added, generated with Cython. Performance basically the same as the core C library. (suggested by Matt Newville) - docstring support added to Python bindings (suggested by Matt Newville) - Windows SDKs now have support for Python 3.4. - Windows 64-bit SDK now comes with IDL bindings - Confirmed support for LabView (thanks to Dariush Hampai!) - Universal Intel 32/64 bit Framework built for Mac OS X - Perl support for Debian/Ubuntu - Several bugfixes: thanks to those that reported them!