Table 11. Concentrations (g/g) of Co, Ni, Hg, Tl, and Se determined for spiked soil matrices by response factor

Table 11. Concentrations (g/g) of Co, Ni, Hg, Tl, and Se

Table 12. Concentrations (g/g) of Ag, Cd, Sn, Sb, and

determined for spiked soil matrices by response factor/

Ba determined for spiked soil matrices by response fac-

Compton Kα peak normalization.

tor/Compton Kα peak normalization.

Metal concentrations (g/g)

Rocky Mountain Arsenal

Lebanon landfill soil

* Average of 0 ppm and matrix subsamples subtracted

Several factors that control the sensitivity of el-

actually result in the production of characteristic

emental analysis by XRF analysis are independent

X-ray photons (Jenkins 1986). In addition, since

of matrix composition. First of all, elements with

only a few isotopes are available for field-portable

low atomic numbers have low fluorescence yields

XRF systems, there can be a large separation be-

(Fig. 4). The fluorescence yield is the ratio of num-

tween incident and excitation energies. The greater

ber of vacancies created within an atom by the in-

this separation, the lower the analyte response, be-

cident radiation to the number of vacancies that

cause fewer atoms become excited. A third factor

9