• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • University of Alaska Fairbanks
    • UAF Graduate School
    • Chemistry and Biochemistry
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • University of Alaska Fairbanks
    • UAF Graduate School
    • Chemistry and Biochemistry
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of Scholarworks@UACommunitiesPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsTypeThis CollectionPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsType

    My Account

    Login

    First Time Submitters, Register Here

    Register

    Statistics

    Display statistics

    X-ray fluorescence spectrometry using synchrotron radiation with applications in unmanned aircraft environmental sensing

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Thumbnail
    Name:
    Barberie_uaf_0006N_10442.pdf
    Size:
    8.662Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    Download
    Author
    Barberie, Sean Richard Gopal
    Chair
    Cahill, Catherine F.
    Committee
    Hatfield, Michael C.
    Iceman, Christopher R.
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/11122/6362
    Abstract
    In this thesis I present an analytical optimization of the Synchrotron Radiation X-Ray Fluorescence (SR-XRF) technique for applications in unmanned aircraft aerosol studies. In environmental and atmospheric science, there is a pressing need for aerosol measurements at various altitudes in the atmosphere and spanning large regions. This need is currently either ignored, or met to a limited degree by studies that employ manned aircraft. There is, however, a great deal of opportunity to improve and expand on these studies using the emerging technology of unmanned aircraft systems. A newly developed aerosol sampler makes this opportunity a near-reality by its ability to collect aerosol samples in-situ from unmanned aircraft platforms. The challenge lies in analyzing these samples for elemental composition. In airborne aerosol studies, the ability to resolve where a sample was collected both spatially and temporally is limited by the sensitivity of the analysis technique. In aircraft-based aerosol collection, the length of the aerosol sample spot corresponds to distance. Thus the spatial resolution of an airborne study is limited by the amount of mass that must be collected for analysis. The SR-XRF optimizations outlined in this thesis decrease the amount of sample mass required for detectable elemental concentrations, allowing aerosol samples to be analyzed in smaller areas corresponding to smaller time steps. Since, in a flight path, time steps are directly correlated with distance, analysis of smaller time steps results in the ability to measure aerosols at higher spatial resolution. Four SR-XRF analysis configurations were experimentally tested: monochromatic beam, white beam, filtered white beam, and filtered white beam-filtered detector to determine which configuration gave the highest elemental sensitivity and selectivity. Of these tested methods, the straight polychromatic white beam configuration resulted in the best sensitivity for elements across a large range of x-ray energies for small amounts of mass collected on thin film substrates. The research in this thesis provides researchers with an optimized method for non-destructively analyzing a wide variety of environmental samples with high elemental sensitivity and selectivity. This research also has important implications for the ability to perform in-situ aerosol studies with unmanned aircraft on a systematic basis.
    Description
    Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2015
    Date
    2015-12
    Type
    Thesis
    Collections
    Chemistry and Biochemistry

    entitlement

     
    ABOUT US|HELP|BROWSE|ADVANCED SEARCH

    The University of Alaska Fairbanks is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and educational institution and is a part of the University of Alaska system.

    ©UAF 2013 - 2023 | Questions? ua-scholarworks@alaska.edu | Last modified: September 25, 2019

    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.