COMPARISON OF EMISSION TRANSMISSION AND ELEMENTAL SENSITIVITY METHODS FOR DETERMINING THE TRACE ELEMENT CONTENT OF BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES

摘要

Two widely used concentration calculation techniques, emission-transmission and elemental sensitivity methods, were compared. In the determination of the trace element content of environmental materials (e.g. plants, soil), the mass absorption coefficients for the exciting and characteristic x-rays are dominated of the 'non-detectable', light major components. When using the elemental sensitivity method, these mass absorption coefficients must be a known a priori. When using the emission-transmission method, the combined attenuation of the incident and fluorescence x-rays within the specimen for the ith element is determined experimentally. The trace element content of biological materials was determined with both methods and the concentrations obtained were compared by t-test and one-way analysis of variance methods. In the case of available reference materials the concentration values obtained with these methods were compared with the certified values. [References: 13]