I have EDS data (wt% normalized) of metal samples having composition of Fe 79.69, Sn 5.93, C 11.69 and O 2.75 %wt. I want to remove C and O from my data and calculate exact ratio of Fe and Sn. How to do this?
Fe:Sn = 79.69 : 5.93. Normalised Fe (%) = 100*79.69/(79.69+5.93). Similar for Sn.
Or am I missing something here?
If you have the original data and the software, I think you can remove/select the elements that you want to take into account for elemental calculation. Just remove oxygen and carbon, and keep Fe and Sn prior to start your calculation.
Hi,
You can calculate the number of counts excluding elements you don't want to consider in final results as 100%. Then you can take there proportionate and workout the quantitative compositions of C and O.
Cheers
1. Was you specimen carbon coated? If not, then you cannot dismiss C. Sure, some part of it can come from contamination, but not 11%.
2. Reverse calculation is at least problematic. You need to repeat analysis or recalculate from existing spectrum using you EDS software, just remove option of normalization in your setup procedure. Then you do not need to "remove" any elements.
First, these are really basics in percentage calculations. Next time somebody is asking for the half of a third....?
It might be more important to think about the actual signal, cf. Vladimir's comment. On the other hand, I don't think that the ratio will be that much affected since 11% C is a quite low (but nevertheless significant) signal in comparison to the Fe peak. And he is also right with his comment 2, that in such a case it might be a better idea to compare at least the result with the simple approach of re-scaling as proposed by Marlina and everybody learned in primary school.
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