I am studying the adsorption of mercury vapours by 2-mercaptobenimidazole. I did an XPS scan of 2-MBI before and after exposure to Hg0 vapours (carrier gas N2) and diluted by ambient air at 140 deg C. I normalised the peaks of both the scans to C1s peak area. The atomic % of N was increased by ~5.5% in the spent 2-MBI.
Can somebody help me understand the increase in the atomic% of surface N atoms when there was no addition of NOx or other N-containing compounds.
Karthik, have you carried out this experiment more than once? If so, what variation in N content did you get. What is the state of the 2-MBI - is it a powder or semi-crystalline?
Dear Joseph,
I have conducted the scan more than once. I am getting this aberrant data in one scan. I could not neglect this scan because other peaks in this scan fit extremely well. Further, the 2-MBI used is amorphous form.
I can't be sure because I can't see the quality or noise level of your data but the cross section of N is quite low so a 5% error on quantification is not uncommon. You should calculate the error on all of your elements in order to be sure that the change is significant
Dear Andrew,
Can you please guide me how to calculate error of all the elements. Any paper/website/tutorial etc.
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