I want to characterize a wastewater sample (mainly Nitrogen), can it be done in SEM EDX? if not is there an alternate strategy to use liquid samples?
Dear Mohit Aggarwal
Evaluating liquid samples in SEM was discussed in the following link; I think it might help you:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is-SEM-analysis-compatable-with-liquid-samples
It may be possible check out this study, it may be of help
Article Improving in situ liquid SEM imaging of particles
Dear Mohit Aggarwal , as stated above by Mehran Shahpari and Enyoh Christian Ebere liquid samples can be studied by SEM, specially particles dispersed in that liquid, another thing is to perform EDX analysis on these samples. May be it is possible, but it wouldn´t be the best way to characterize a wastewater sample, because there are plenty of other analytical techniques that could give you a better or comparable result but with a lot less technical complication. For instace, if you are interested in nitrogen concentration you could perform an elemental analysis. It is a destructive technique, but the sample volume required is tiny and probably you have a large pool of wastewater.
SEM EDX could provide you some information too, but liquid cells for sample holding are not always available in any SEM facility, so probably you should prepare a sample by casting a drop of your wastewater sample over a SEM grid, let it evaporate completely and load it on the SEM chamber to do the EDX analysis, but bear in mind that this analysis wouldn´t be quantitative and could not give you a proper information about your sample composition.
Elemental analysis is fast and cheap and give you a quantitative value.
Hope it helps.
SEM provides detailed high resolution images of the sample through focused electron beam across the surface and detecting secondary or backscattered electron signal while Energy Dispersive X-Ray analyzer is used for elemental identification and quantitative composition. Here, the electron beam hits inner shell of an atom knocking off an electron from the shell while leaving positively charged electron from an outer shell to fill vacancy.
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