Dear Lawrence,

No it is not possible to gain information on chemical bonds by XRF. You need e.g. XPS (photoelectron spectroscopy) where peak shifts and peak splitting yield information on the chemical state of the atoms. Other methods are FT-IR spectroscopy or Raman spectroscoby, where chemical groups like CH3 a.o. can be identified.

Dear Lawrence Olusegun Ajala ,

in addition to the answer of Kirsten Ingolf Schiffmann ,

please have a look for example at page 14 of:

http://conference.kek.jp/JASS02/PDF_PPT/31_Ohta.pdf

and at

Article Chemical shifts of Kα and Kβ1,3 X-ray emission spectra for o...

The chemical shifts and profile changes of x-ray fluorescence lines as a function of the oxidation state are very small.

They can only be detected by the application of dedicated crystal monochromators. Energy dispersive techniques, which are mainy applied in XRF, are not able to detect such small differences due to the quite 'poor' energy resolution of the detectors.

Oxidation state is often investigated via XANES ( x-ray near edge spectroscopy); here the energy shift of the x-ray absorption edge shows up as a function of the oxidation state of the excited atom.

An example of the edge shift(s) for the case of Mn oxidation state(s) is given in the diagram of the answer of Dirk Luetzenkirchen-Hecht in:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Generally-Mn-is-reported-as-total-Mn-How-to-differentiate-Mn2-Mn3-and-other-oxidation-states-of-Mn-in-an-reduced-Mn-ore-sample-any-technique.

But also here crystal monochromators are needed.

Best regards

G.M.

Dear Dr Lawrence Olusegun Ajala . See the following useful link: https://archaeometry.missouri.edu/xrf_technical.html

Kindly see also the following very good link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/x-ray-spectroscopy

See also the following very good link: https://www.nature.com/articles/nmat3031?proof=t%29Nature