Dear all,
I'm looking for the best approach possible for determining the chemical composition of concrete. The assumed composition is 0.56 H; 49.86 O; 1.71 Na; 0.24 Mg; 4.56 Al; 31.58 Si; 0.12 S; 1.92 K; 8.26 Ca; 1.22 Fe (all values given in wt.%). We want to confirm this composition, but we also want to quantify the impurities: namely, Th, U, Co, Eu and B (among other things??).
Of course I could get some of these elements by PIXE + EBS (standard ion beam analysis techniques) but I can't easily get the Na, Mg and B concentrations.
Any good idea?
Many thanks.
Julien
Hi Julien, greetings from Yorkshire - officially retired, but I'm still writing up the WFPC2 stuff and want you as co-author, so please send me your new e-mail!
Concrete will be very heterogeneous, so you may want to think about whether you need microanalysis of small (but unrepresentative) areas, or bulk. If you want bulk analysis, then Mg and Na are quite easy by conventional wet chemistry or ICPMS, I'm not sure about B, but there's been a lot of interest in B analysis at the NHM, so if you were to contact Stanislav Strekopytov in the Facilities Department, I'm sure he'd be able to advise.
Looking forward to talking soon,
Best wishes,
Anton
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