Recovering and restitution of unknown, unidentified, and unlabeled samples in laboratories using EDXRF analysis

Cebastien Joel Guembou Shouop; Cedric Tayou Kamkumo; Eric Jilbert Nguelem Mekongtso; Jean Felix Beyala Ateba; Maurice Ndontchueng Moyo; Augustin Simo; David Strivay

doi:10.1016/j.mex.2021.101435

Recovering and restitution of unknown, unidentified, and unlabeled samples in laboratories using EDXRF analysis

MethodsX. 2021 Jun 30:8:101435. doi: 10.1016/j.mex.2021.101435. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Cebastien Joel Guembou Shouop^{1

2}, Cedric Tayou Kamkumo², Eric Jilbert Nguelem Mekongtso^{1

2}, Jean Felix Beyala Ateba², Maurice Ndontchueng Moyo^{1

2}, Augustin Simo², David Strivay³

Affiliations

¹ UFD Mathématiques, Informatique Appliquée et Physique Fondamentale, Université de Douala, P.O. Box 24157, Douala, Cameroun.
² National Radiation Protection Agency of Cameroon, Box 33732, Yaounde, Cameroon.
³ Atomic and Nuclear Spectroscopy, Archeometry, University of Liège, Bat. B15 Sart Tilman, 4000 Liege 1, Belgium.

Abstract

This Study presents a method to recover and label unknown samples in a nuclear laboratory using Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) spectrometry based on spectra differentiation and analysis. This method was found to be a new powerful tool that can be used in different laboratories where a certain number of samples cannot be identified because they have never been identified, their labeling and identification cannot be assessed because of degradation, and/or any other causes. The method was found to be simple, timely appropriate, not expensive, and powerful in identifying and recover the information needed for a sample. The EDXRF spectrometry method for recovering unknown samples in laboratories was based on the following three main points:•EDXRF method allows the elemental characterization of any sample without clear identification in a laboratory;•The displaying of several samples' spectra on the same graph allows direct comparison and identification when the sample's data overlap one of the stored data; and•The identification of the unknown sample based on the EDXRF results: The faster method being the overlapping comparison while the elemental characterization-based identification needs high skilled expertise in X-ray fluorescence analysis.

Keywords: EDXRF; Elemental characterization; Spectra; Unknown samples; XRF.