X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry and Related Techniques

Eva Marguí is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry of the University of Girona. She is a researcher in the Analytical and Environmental Chemistry Unit of the same University. Her research interests are focussed on the development of analytical methodologies based on XRF for the determination of elements in environmental and industrial samples. She is the author of more than thirty publications on XRF in high-level journals and has participated in different conferences in the field as an invited lecturer. She is the secretary of the European X-ray Spectrometry Association.

X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) is a well-established analytical technique for qualitative and quantitative elemental analysis of a wide variety of routine quality control and research samples. Among its many desirable features, it delivers true multi-element character analysis, acceptable speed and economy, easy of automation, and the capacity to analyze solid samples. This remarkable contribution to this field provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of basic principles, recent developments, instrumentation, sample preparation procedures, and applications of XRF analysis. If you are a professional in materials science, analytic chemistry, or physics, you will benefit from not only the review of basics, but also the newly developed technologies with XRF. Those recent technological advances, including the design of low-power micro- focus tubes and novel X-ray optics and detectors, have made it possible to extend XRF to the analysis of low-Z elements and to obtain 2D or 3D information on a micrometer-scale. And, the recent development and commercialization of bench top and portable instrumentation, offering extreme simplicity of operation in a low-cost design, have extended the applications of XRF to many more analytical problems.