Metal acetylacetonates dissolved in UV-curing resin as solid reference material for trace element measurements in organic samples

In this article a preparation method for reference materials containing trace amounts of metals is presented. The applicability is shown for spatial resolved techniques like mu XRF and LA-ICP-MS, for a handheld system (handheld LIBS) and also for C mu XRF which provides depth resolved information. The materials show excellent trace element homogeneities for spatial resolved measurements as well as for depth sensitive methods. This was demonstrated for Al, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Fe, La, Mg, Pb, Sr and Zn, which cover a wide range of different elemental properties. In addition, a sample containing four different elements was used to show that the preparation of multi element samples is possible with this preparation method. A sample series of seven samples with increasing iron content was generated to show the suitability of the prepared material as reference material for the calibration of the different analytical techniques. Due to the stackability of the obtained layers a wide range of applications for depth resolved measurements was opened. Therefore, the capability of the material as well as the performance of the C mu XRF setup were shown by determining the depth profile of multiple layer systems containing 1000 mg kg(-1) iron.

Automated summary

This article presents a preparation method for reference materials containing trace amounts of metals and demonstrates its applicability and performance in different analytical techniques. The materials prepared using this method show excellent performance in spatial resolved measurements and depth sensitive methods, making them suitable as reference materials for calibration purposes.