Potential and Limitations of Hand-held XRF Analyzers for the Analyses of Bronze

Karel Malý, Michal Daňa, Jaroslav Kapusta

Archeologia technica, vol. 30 (2019)
Pages: 84–88
Language: Czech
Type of article: scientific article
DOI: n/a

Abstract:
Ten standards of Cu-Sn alloys (bronzes) were prepared to verify the performance of hand-held XRF analyzers for their analysis. The standards contain from 0 to 45 wt% Sn; the Sn content increases in 5wt% increments. The standards were analyzed by a laboratory WD-XRF instrument, two types of hand-held ED-XRF instruments and using an electron microscope with an attached EDX analyzer. It could be determined that the hand-held XRF analyzers provide good results with an absolute error of 0,5 to 1,0 wt%; the error can further be lowered by statistical methods (deriving and using a calibration curve). There may, however, be a substantial variation in the quality of the measured data between various hand-held devices. The precision of the measurement is good (standard deviation 0,076); the measurement time has no important impact on the measurement quality. A somewhat lower measurement precision was obtained using a collimator. Sample homogeneity and its surface quality have a major impact on the measurement precision (oxidation products on the sample surface). The hand-held XRF spectrometers provided useful results even when measuring filings drilled from the standards in an overall quantity of but 0,X g. The absolute analytical error (up to 5 wt%) is quite high in case of low Sn contents (5–10 %).