Instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) for steel analysis and certification

Addition of trace elements (intended or as impurities) in steel or alloys can completely change the properties of materials; thus, there is a necessity to have reliable analytical techniques to determine major and trace components in this type of material. Also, to solving problems with quality control/quality assurance (QC/QA) in this subject, appropriate certified reference materials should be available in the wide range. Several methods have been proposed for quantitative analysis of steel samples: inductively coupled plasma (ICP-OES) [1, 4], inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) [5, 8], atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) [11], X-ray fluorescence (XRF) [1, 6], and neutron activation analysis (NAA) [1, 2, 7, 10]. As a rule, all of these techniques possess some limitation like required sample dissolution or appropriate sample mass. These requirements like preliminary separation get worse the accuracy. For accuracy reason, it is advisable to apply more than one method for analysis. INAA is one of the preferred methods because it provides information on a large number of elements simultaneously. Another important feature of INAA is that it is free from the problems connected with digestion of difficult matrices and potential contamination of a sample from reagents. Moreover, by changing irradiation and cooling parameters as well as measurement time, the effect of the interfering radionuclides on the results of analysis of particular elements can Instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) for steel analysis and certification Halina Polkowska-Motrenko, Ewelina Chajduk, Bożena Danko