A sample carrier for measuring discrete powdered samples with an ITRAX XRF core scanner

The elemental composition of discrete powdered sediment samples can be measured by the energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (XRF) system that is installed in XRF core scanners. Because an appropriate sample carrier for powdered samples is currently not available, for example, for the ITRAX XRF core scanner, such a carrier is presented in this technical note. The designed sample carrier can hold 30 sample cups with a volume of 0.88cm(3) each. A maximum of 5 sample carriers, that is, 150 samples, can be measured in one run. The sample cups and carriers are optimized for a measurement procedure with a step size of 5mm and variable count times up to 100s per sample. With this setting, data are collected from an area of 100mm(2) in the center of the sample thereby ensuring a good representativeness of the signal because potential sample inhomogeneity is accounted for. Because the described sample carrier system allows rapid element analyses of discrete powdered environmental samples with an XRF core scanner, it may in some cases represent a time- and cost-efficient alternative to conventional XRF analyses.