5/26/2016
The couple of first days of research were reading through the manuals and documentation of particular instruments-XRF HD Prime, SEM, TGA and DSC in the SAINT Center. At the same time we took part in training needed to handle each of the these instruments.As the first part of our project for Summer research 2016, we will be analyzing dust samples from number of places. This project is going further into a Elemental analysis done on Dust samples in Roger Bacon and Siena Hall by Jack rogers that could be found in the link below;
Elemental Analysis of Dust Using Scanning Electron Microscopy and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy - By Jack Rogers
We will be analyzing more samples taken from various other locations, including places outside Siena. After Brainstorming, the following places were a few possibilities we looked into collecting dust,
Sample Locations
- Roger Bacon 136, 131 & Closets
- Facilities Building (Old Public Safety Building)
- Lonnstrom Dining Hall (Saga)
- Casey’s/SSU
- Padua Room 206
- Old Factory (If we can get in)
- 48 Hudson Avenue-Albany Convention Center
- Wal-Mart
- Padua Basement/Hennepin Basement
- AVI Food Truck
- Hoffman’s Playland (Old Carnival behind Old Subway)
- Hoffman's Car Wash (Maybe)
- McDonalds/Wendy’s/Burger King/Taco Bell/Five Guys
- Maintenance Rooms/Closets/Hallways (George/Henry ask about dirtiest places to clean )
- Ceiling Tiles
- Gas Station
We will collecting two samples from each location. After collecting the sample from the place, we will clean the spot and stay a period of 1 week to get a second sample from the same spot to analyze the new dust that was accumulated during that period of 1 week. Hence the following points were noted as guidelines;
- Use a flashlight to make sure there’s dust
- 1 week to let dust collect
- Cleaned Surface vs. Old Surface
→ Old Dust vs. New Dust
- Double sided Carbon Tape for 1 sample and then a different tape for a second sample, we can subtract the difference in carbon and oxygen from the tape to get an accurate measurement.
- Put dust on something toxic and see if it becomes toxic
- Use SEM on foods-fruit(only skin)
5/27/2016
We have collected samples from three locations so far,
Roger Bacon 136, Book Shelf - Elemental Analysis Complete
Roger Bacon 136, Closet - Elemental Analysis Sample 1 Complete
Roger Bacon Lounge Books
The data and the collection records are attached bellow,
Using Carbon tape for prep and collection of dust.
The bookshelf which we collected dust from is shown in the image above.
Collecting Samples from RB 136 Bookshelf:
Collecting Samples from RB 136 Closet:
Collecting Samples from RB 136 Lounge:
We obtained a bulk of a dust sample from RB 136 lounge books to analyze it using the XRF HD Prime to get a perspective of the elements in the dust sample. We used a Transparent film to cover the dust and the coating option in the HD prime to analyze the dust between the film.
Eventhough a small concentration of many elements were found during the XRF analysis, the following are the elements that were found primarily in large concentrations;
| Full Results | ||||
| Coated | ||||
| Element | Concentration /ppm | Uncertainty /ppm | Area Density (ug/cm^2) | Counts |
| Ba 56 | 0.02 | ± 0.02 | 1.10E-05 | 0 |
| Bi 83 | 4.5 | ± 1.4 | 0.0022 | 55.4 |
| Br 35 | 18.6 | ± 1.7 | 0.0093 | 1043.9 |
| Ca 20 | 4597 | ± 177 | 2.3 | 6092.9 |
| Cl 17 | 8993 | ± 951 | 4.5 | 788.8 |
| Cr 24 | 181 | ± 36.4 | 0.09 | 237.8 |
| Cu 29 | 16 | ± 1.7 | 0.008 | 504.2 |
| Fe 26 | 545 | ± 21.5 | 0.27 | 4969.7 |
| K 19 | 1339 | ± 159 | 0.67 | 249 |
| Pb 82 | 37.5 | ± 5.6 | 0.019 | 299.6 |
| Rb 37 | 1.1 | ± 0.5 | 0.00057 | 105 |
| S 16 | 5257 | ± 687 | 2.6 | 600.8 |
| Sb 51 | 259 | ± 83.3 | 0.13 | 30.7 |
| Sr 38 | 16 | ± 1.4 | 0.008 | 1293.3 |
| Ti 22 | 994 | ± 119 | 0.5 | 989.6 |
| Zn 30 | 99.1 | ± 4.6 | 0.049 | 3319.9 |
| RT 4.991919E-4 | ||||
| Substrate | ||||
| Element | Concentration /ppm | Uncertainty /ppm | Area Density (ug/cm^2) | Counts |
| Ba 56 | 97.7 | ± 53.2 | - | 85.4 |
| Bi 83 | 3.5 | ± 1.3 | - | 37.7 |
| Br 35 | 37.8 | ± 4.0 | - | 800 |
| Ca 20 | 6212 | ± 224 | - | 6003.2 |
| Cl 17 | 7675 | ± 580 | - | 1724.9 |
| Cr 24 | 104 | ± 15.4 | - | 325 |
| Cu 29 | 39.2 | ± 4.7 | - | 395.2 |
| Fe 26 | 576 | ± 26.7 | - | 3576.5 |
| K 19 | 1809 | ± 147 | - | 1102.9 |
| Mn 25 | 19.1 | ± 4.9 | - | 93.1 |
| Pb 82 | 15.9 | ± 3.0 | - | 198.2 |
| Rb 37 | 3.9 | ± 1.9 | - | 83.4 |
| S 16 | 5033 | ± 702 | - | 428.2 |
| Sb 51 | 107 | ± 52.0 | - | 47.1 |
| Sr 38 | 46.3 | ± 4.4 | - | 1017.5 |
| Ti 22 | 483 | ± 45.2 | - | 906.1 |
| Zn 30 | 217 | ± 11.5 | - | 2575.8 |
| RT 0.0032011278 | ||||
| Scan Info | ||||
| Sample | 693_Dust sample RB Lounge books_ 1418 | |||
| Coating | TRUE | |||
| Substrate | Plastic | |||
| Name | Dust sample RB Lounge books | |||
| Lot | Sample 2 | |||
| Optimization | Extended | |||
| System | ||||
| Scan# | 693 | |||
| Serial# | HD131122001 | |||
| Date | 2016-May-26 | |||
| Time | 14:18:55 | |||
| Operator | Tristen Protzmann | |||
| Description | Dust | |||
| Version Info | ||||
| System Serial Number | HD131122001 | |||
| GUI Software Version | 1.5.0 1428* | |||
| Firmware Version | XOS [HD PRIME 1.2.1 IOP3 L S2] | |||
| Solver Version | 2.1.6-11 | |||
The substrate represents the dust samples and the coating is the transparent film, in the data above. As expected from the analysis, a large amount of Calcium and Chlorine can be seen, however since the dust particles are small in size, a accurate analysis of the elements cannot be obtained because the layer of dust is thin. Still we get an overall picture of what elements should be expected and from this analysis, the elements should be Bromine, Calcium, Chlorine, Iron, Potassium, Sulfur, Strontium [maybe :( ], Titanium [ Again maybe], and Zinc.
The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) is used for deep analysis of elemental composition.
The results of Elemental Analysis of Dust Using Scanning Electron Microscopy and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy for the samples in RB 136 are shown below.
For Roger Bacon 136 Book shelf, the elemental mapping of the sample;
The elemental mapping with the image of the sample;
The element spectrum of the sample:
The image of the sample 1 obtained from RB 136 Bookshelf under x100 magnification under the SEM
The image of dust sample RB 136 Sample 1 - Click the Link
The data for the elemental composition of the sample 1 excluding Carbon and Oxygen which cannot be measured because, these elements can be found in the Carbon tape we used and the oxygen in Air.
| Element | AN | series | [wt.%] | [norm. wt.%] | [norm. at.%] | Error in wt.% (1 Sigma) |
| Sodium | 11 | K-series | 0.462124365 | 6.490968876 | 9.15554883 | 0.060391958 |
| Magnesium | 12 | K-series | 0.276086655 | 3.877895256 | 5.173803521 | 0.043458414 |
| Aluminium | 13 | K-series | 0.654099667 | 9.187441519 | 11.04173542 | 0.059937915 |
| Silicon | 14 | K-series | 1.660582071 | 23.32442813 | 26.93012241 | 0.100833669 |
| Sulfur | 16 | K-series | 0.626715149 | 8.802800357 | 8.901958126 | 0.050017739 |
| Chlorine | 17 | K-series | 0.859096484 | 12.06681353 | 11.03704386 | 0.056475889 |
| Potassium | 19 | K-series | 0.5277701 | 7.413024611 | 6.148186745 | 0.043002157 |
| Calcium | 20 | K-series | 1.516960073 | 21.30712286 | 17.23964236 | 0.071686671 |
| Iron | 26 | K-series | 0.536062908 | 7.529504864 | 4.37195872 | 0.041334532 |
| Sum: | 7.119497471 | 100 | 100 |
For Roger Bacon 136 Bookshelf, the elemental mapping, elemental mapping with the image, element spectrum and the image of the sample 2 is shown below;
The image of dust sample RB 136 Sample 2 - Click the Link
For Roger Bacon 136 Closet, the elemental mapping, elemental mapping with the image, element spectrum, the image and the data for the elemental composition (without O and C) of the sample is shown below;
The image of dust sample RB 136 Closet Sample - Click The Link
| Element | AN | series | [wt.%] | [norm. wt.%] | [norm. at.%] | Error in wt.% (1 Sigma) |
| Sodium | 11 | K-series | 0.320271134 | 4.527656248 | 6.292115752 | 0.050992294 |
| Magnesium | 12 | K-series | 0.179499978 | 2.537581785 | 3.335664064 | 0.037977074 |
| Aluminium | 13 | K-series | 0.648718143 | 9.170894422 | 10.8593253 | 0.059959608 |
| Silicon | 14 | K-series | 1.881641812 | 26.60067177 | 30.25995848 | 0.111041768 |
| Sulfur | 16 | K-series | 0.91721584 | 12.96663231 | 12.9193389 | 0.061312659 |
| Chlorine | 17 | K-series | 0.666848277 | 9.427199169 | 8.495545108 | 0.050482663 |
| Potassium | 19 | K-series | 0.428141598 | 6.05261535 | 4.945874403 | 0.040413797 |
| Calcium | 20 | K-series | 2.031325976 | 28.71674895 | 22.89217799 | 0.087443128 |
| Sum: | 7.073662758 | 100 | 100 |
From the dust samples taken from RB 136 Bookshelf, the primary elements that can be found are Sodium, Aluminium, Silicon, Sulfur, Chlorine, Potassium, Calcium and Iron.
For the dust sample analyzed from RB 136 Closet, the primary elements that can be found are Aluminium, Silicon, Sulfur, Chlorine, Potassium and Calcium.
Several of these elements were predicted using the XRF HDPrime as seen from the data previously. The percentage weight is calculated in the data excluding the elements Carbons, Oxygen and Nitrogen, which cannot be identified because they are either in Carbon Tape or the air. So far a method to calculate if Carbon is in the sample is to use another type of tape such as Copper tape, yet Carbon can be found in the Adhesive of the tape.
