Patent ID: 6496562
Filing Date: 2002-12-17
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
A method for classifying and identifying, by means of energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis, chemical substances whose X-ray fluorescence lines cannot be detected and which therefore cannot be classified by energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis (EDXRFA) alone, which comprises:a) positioning a sample to be analyzed in front of a measurement opening in a sample chamber in an X-ray fluorescence system, b) measuring the scattering of X-rays signals from the sample, and c) classifying and identifying the chemical substances, whose X-ray fluorescence lines cannot be detected, by application of principal component analysis (PCA) and/or regularized discriminance analysis (RDA) methods to the X-ray Compton and Rayleigh scattering spectral ranges of the measured signals in b), wherein the sample is maintained in its original packaging or is otherwise analyzed without prior processing in a sample vessel.