Elemental analysis of nanomaterial using photon-atom interaction based EDXRF technique

Abstract Presence of trace amount of foreign impurities (both metallic and non-metallic) in standard salts used for sample preparation and during the synthesis process can alter the physical and chemical behavior of the pure and doped nano-materials. Therefore, it becomes important to determine concentration of various elements present in synthesized nano-material sample. In present work, the elemental and compositional analysis of nano-materials synthesized using various methods has been performed using photon-atom interaction based energy dispersive x-ray luorescence (EDXRF) technique. This technique due to its multielement analytical capability, lower detection limit, capability to analyze metals and non-metals alike and almost no sample preparation requirements can be utilized for analysis of nano-materials. The EDXRF spectrometer involves a 2.4 kW Mo anode x-ray tube (Pananalytic, Netherland) equipped with selective absorbers as an excitation source and an LEGe detector (FWHM = 150 eV at 5.895 keV, Canberra, US) coupled with PC based multichannel analyzer used to collect the luorescent x-ray spectra. The analytical results showed good agreements with the expected values calculated on the basis of the precursor used in preparation of nano-materials. 

Authors:- Sanjeev Kumar

G.G.D.S.D. College Sector-32, Chandigarh
Arun Kumar 
Department of Physics, Panjab University, Chandigarh
Mansi Chitkara 
Nanomaterials Research Laboratory, Chitkara University, Rajpura 140401, Punjab, India
I.S. Snadhu 
Nanomaterials Research Laboratory, Chitkara University, Rajpura 140401, Punjab, IndiaDevinder Mehta
Department of Physics, Panjab University, Chandigarh