# Selected Area XPS Analysis for Identification of Pigment Compounds in Microscopic Paint Flakes

Authors: Bryony Joanne James; Rebecca Cameron; Camilla  Baskcomb
Journal: Research Letters in Materials Science
 (2008)

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## Abstract

The application of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to the analysis of paint flakes from a painting by Henry Fuseli (1741–1825) is presented.  Historically, the application of XPS to art conservation and restoration studies has been limited by the poor spatial resolution of the technique.  Presented here is the successful analysis of paint flakes in the order of 100μm using “imaging” XPS in conjunction with selected area analysis.  Raman microscopy failed to satisfactorily identify the compounds present in this instance, and energy dispersive spectroscopy could not differentiate between lead and sulphur (two of the elements of interest) due to the limited energy resolution inherent in that technique.  Using XPS analysis of the lead 4f peak revealed that the pigment was a lead-based pigment, in this case comprising exclusively lead-sulphur compounds.


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## Body

## 1. Introduction

A large variety of materials characterization techniques are employed in the field of cultural heritage
conservation. In the study of paintings,
spectroscopic techniques are frequently used to identify the composition of
pigments, ground, and support for the purposes of restoration and conservation. The most commonly used of the
spectroscopic techniques are Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)
[1, 2] and Raman spectroscopy [3–5],
usually used in conjunction with light microscopy these techniques offer good
spatial resolution, can analyse small samples, and can be used in situ. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is also commonly
used and requires only a minute amount of sample [6, 7]. Additional techniques include, but are not
limited to, X-ray emission spectroscopy, Mossbauer spectroscopy and gas chromatography-mass
spectrometry (GC-MS). The techniques are
complimentary with some better suited to organic materials, others to
inorganics, excellent reviews of the common spectroscopy techniques are given
by Bitossi etal. [8] and
Dawson [9]. Each technique has its own
spatial resolution in both X-Y and Z axes, thus determining the “surface
sensitivity” and lateral resolution of the resulting analysis area. Naturally, in situ nondestructive techniques are the most desirable but when that is not possible then techniques that use extremely small sample
size (in the order of μm) are the next best option.One technique that has great
potential for analysis of pigments, particularly inorganic pigments, is X-ray photoelectron
spectroscopy (XPS). XPS is an
information dense technique giving a semiquantified elemental analysis of the
top ten or so atomic layers of a solid sample. Chemical functionality can also
be determined by examining the energy shifts in the spectrum for individual
elements. However, recently XPS has found limited application in conservation
studies due to the limited spatial resolution in the XY plane. Where XPS has
been used, it has been on samples that are sufficiently large and homogenous
that this limited spatial resolution has not been an issue [10]. Recent advances in XPS instrumentation have
now made it possible to analyse small samples with improved spatial resolution
and to make use of the so-called “imaging” XPS, where energies can be imaged
with a spatial resolution of down to 3 μm. This
paper presents the results of analysis of a pigment flake, approximately 100 μm, across exploiting imaging XPS and selected
area analysis.The painting in question was a watercolour
drawing on paper by Henry Fuseli,The
Great Father and Ancient Night (c.1810),held in the collection of the Auckland Art Gallery. This particular work
was of interest due the curious dark appearance of certain parts of the image,
suggesting that the pigment may have originally been lighter. Artists of this period had limited pigments
available to them and of the whites both lead sulphate and lead carbonate are
notoriously unstable. In the presence of
atmospheric sulphur, these can darken to lead sulphide, therefore, dramatically
altering the appearance of a picture. Only very small samples of paint were available for analysis and
attempts were made to confirm the identity of the pigment compounds using Raman
spectroscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) but without conclusive
results. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR)
analysis was considered but would have required a larger sample than could be
taken from this delicate work. XPS analysis was used in this instance attempting
to confirm the suspected identity of the lead compounds.


## 2. Experimental

Areas for sampling were chosen so as
to be inconspicuous and were recorded on a photograph of the original work, as
shown in Figure1. The paint flakes were collected from the painting using two
fine scalpel blades with 40x magnification under a binocular microscope. The
samples were stored on a glass microscope slide, and as the flakes were too
small to handle and mount in any other way, they were analysed in situ on the slide.(a) The Great Father and Ancient Night, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki purchased
1965 (1965/73). Arrow indicates sample area. (b) Detail of sample area x6.4
magnification.
(a)(b)The Raman spectra were recorded on a
Renishaw 1000 Raman imaging microscope using a Renishaw solid-state diode laser
as an excitation source emitting a line in the near-infrared region at∼785 nm
at 26 mW with a grating of 1200 lines/mm. A 20x objective was used which
focused the beam to a size of approximately 5 μm at the sample surface. EDS analysis was conducted using an EDAX
Phoenix EDS detector attached to an FEI Quanta 200 Scanning electron microscope.XPS analysis was conducted using a
Kratos Axis Ultra DLD XPS. A magnifying
video camera was used to locate a paint flake in the approximate analysis
area. Lens and iris settings of the XPS
were selected to give an analysis area of 400μm square.
Monochromatic aluminium Kα X-rays (energy 1486.69 eV) at a power of 150 W
were used in conjunction with a detector pass energy of 160 eV in order to
collect an image centred on the energy of the lead 4 f peak (approximately
139 eV). A charge neutralization system
was optimised to ensure that any shift in the energy of the lead 4 f peak was
the result of chemical functionality, not sample charging. Any sample charging that did occur was
accounted for by shifting all the peaks with respect to the carbon 1 s peak
(285 eV).Once a paint flake had been located, the
lens and iris settings of the instrument were changed to generate selected areas
for analysis (in the Kratos instrument, the X-rays are still used as a
spatially diffuse “flood” source and the analysis area is selected from within
that area by electron optics). These analysis areas were 300μm × 500 μm (for
survey scans) and 110 μm diameter (for narrow scans or individual
elements) centred on the flake already identified in imaging mode. As the flakes were in the order
of 100 μm, this had the inevitable consequence of
including some of the glass slide in the analysis area, whilst smaller selected
areas are possible, they were not necessary in this instance as the elements of
interest were not detected in the glass slide. The larger analysis areas also improved the signal to noise ratio of the
spectra.Survey scans were conducted from
1100 eV to 0 eV with a step size of 1 eV, a dwell time of 180 milliseconds (for 20
sweeps, giving total acquisition time of 3964 seconds), and a detector pass
energy of 160 eV in order to determine what elements were present. Narrow scans were performed on the carbon 1 s
peak, centred on 285 eV and used as an internal standard for charge referencing
and also on the lead 4 f peak. The step
size for the narrow scans was 0.1 eV, dwell time was around 300 milliseconds,
and pass energy of the detector was set to 40 eV. For the carbon 20 sweeps were conducted for a
total acquisition time of 1206 seconds. For the lead a total of 30 sweeps were conducted for a total acquisition
time of 1810 seconds.Wide scans were quantified using a
Shirley background. Narrow scans were
deconvoluted using a Shirley background and Gaussian-Lorentzian peak shape with
a G-L ratio of 70.


## 3. Results and Discussion

The results of EDS analysis indicated
the presence of lead and carbon though the presence of any sulphur were masked
by the peak overlap between the sulphur and lead peaks. The Raman spectrum for
a white area of a paint fragment gave bands at 1155, 977, 640, 607, 449, and
438 cm−1 characteristic of Anglesite or lead sulphate (PbSO4). However, the spectrum of the dark area in the
paint fragment exhibited fluorescence which masked the bands. Only two weak
bands were observed at 975 cm−1 and 1306 cm−1, indicating
either that an impurity was present or that the lead sulphate had changed
composition.The results of XPS imaging of the
energy of the lead 4 f peak are shown in Figure2. As may be seen, the flakes were
apparent as brighter areas (where lead is present) and were of the order of
100 μm across. Survey scans were
conducted to detect all the elements present (excluding hydrogen which cannot
be detected by XPS) and a typical result is given in Table 1. It must be noted that the analysis area used
for survey scans (300 μm × 500 μm) was substantially larger than the paint
flake and as such included the glass slide. This was not a problem as the aim of the survey scans was to identify
the presence or otherwise of lead, iron, and sulphur (elements not present in
the glass slide) in order to determine the appropriate narrow scans for
chemical state analysis.Table 1
Sem-quantified elemental composition (note excludes hydrogen).
Atomic %Mass %Sodium7.79.7Oxygen42.737.7Calcium0.51.2Carbon35.223.3Chlorine0.40.8Sulphur0.20.4Lead0.77.8Silicon11.317.5Magnesium1.31.8XPS image captured at 138 eV to show
presence of lead.
(a)(b)The semiquantification of the
elements in the survey scans was dominated by the contribution from the glass
slide; however, lead and sulphur were detected, whereas iron was not (one of
the possible pigments in the dark areas was iron gall).The lead 4 f peak is naturally shaped
as a “doublet” (i.e., has two main peaks separated by 4.7 eV). In this case,
each of the two halves of the doublet was further made up of separate peaks arising
from the various chemical states of lead that were present. As shown in Figure3, each half of the lead doublet could be deconvoluted into 3 peaks. The
energies of these peaks (charge referenced to hydrocarbon at 285 eV), and their
relative amounts, correspond to the chemical states summarised in Table 2.Table 2
Lead 4 f binding energies, chemical state, and quantification.
Energy (doublet) eVChemical stateRelative amount137.3 (142.0)PbO or PbS [11]10.8%138.3 (143.0)PbSO3 [12]17.4%139.3 (144.0)PbSO4 [12]71.8%Figure 3
Lead 4 f peak deconvoluted with 3 constituent
peaks per half.The majority of the lead appears to
be present as lead sulphate (PbSO4), in agreement with the Raman
result, with some present as lead sulphite (PbSO3) and some present
either as lead sulphide (PbS) or lead (II) oxide (PbO). As both lead sulphate
and sulphite are usually white and lead (II) oxide is red or yellow, it seems
likely that the peak at 137.3 eV is a result of lead sulphide due to the black
colour in these areas.


## 4. Conclusions

Using XPS, with imaging mode and
selected area analysis, it has been possible to analyse flakes of paint that
are in the order of 100μm across. Whilst
Raman spectroscopy was able to identify the areas of the paint that were not
darkened, in the darkened region fluorescence prevented a reliable
identification. EDS analysis of the paint fragments was compromised by energy
resolution and peak overlap of the lead and sulphur peaks. Not only was XPS able to confirm the presence
of lead and sulphur in the flakes of pigment in this case, it was also possible
to identify the lead compounds present.
In particular, confirming the presence of PbS suggests that there might
have been some atmospheric degradation of the white pigment compounds.Whilst XPS should in no way be
considered a replacement for the range of spectroscopic techniques usually
employed by art conservators and restorers, it is a useful addition to the tools
available. Only with the advent of selected area analysis and imaging XPS
systems, can the small samples usually available in such circumstances be
successfully analysed.



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*Source: 247053-2008-05-26.xml*