Thanks to member Steve D. in ALBQ NM for mentioning that Zn ores are also a common source of?
Cd.
Testing several species of ore here with the new emphasis on Cd has proved problematic. First the X-Ray hump from the tube is most intense right where Cd K line XRF is located, making it harder to pick out a weak peak there. Strong K peaks- no problem, as shown in one of the pictures to follow.
So I tried looking for L peaks from Cd in? ore.?
First steps are to use pure Cd metal to establish calibration points exactly for 3.2, 3.13, 3.31, 3.52, and 3.71kev.
Then another XRF test of the empty chamber, with no samples inside, for the same time and exposure data.
In all tests for this series, the 3 Al beam filters remain but the final collimator is removed to give a wide beam on the mineral tests to follow. The
detector is an Amptek Si-PIN into the Amptek DP5-PC5 electronics stack, then USB to a notebook computer for control and storage.
First the pure metal "stamp"r, X-Ray source set to 37kVp-25uA
In the above, Ka, Kb are in perfect alignment and something is barely detected around 3 keV This rendition (LINEAR) shows how well the K lines are excited in the lighter elements, compared to their L lines.
Geo
