Hello everyone,

I have a soil sample in which soil organic matter was stained. To find out how effective and specific the staining was, I want to map the spatial distribution of both organic matter and the staining agent. The idea is to do that with EDX measurements on a thin section of that sample.

The problem is that epoxy resin, which is typically used as the embedding material, is an organic substance itself. So, is there a possibility to differentiate between resin and soil organic matter using EDX measurements? Or would it be possible with any other chemical surface analysis? (I have never done any of these, so please talk like to a beginner on that area.)

As one idea, I read about adding a dye to the resin that is visible under UV light (doi:10.1016/j.geoderma.2012.02.023). Maybe something analogous is possible for EDX measurements?

Another idea, can one distinguish between them based on functional groups? Is EDX capable of measuring that?

Are there embedding substances that would be easily distinguishable from soil organic matter?

I am pretty sure someone has had this problem before, so I hope the solution is out there, too. Thanks in advance to the one(s) reporting it here.