Optimizing the Operating Conditions of a Molybdenum Target Total Reflection XRay Fluorescence TXRF Spectrometer Using a Computer Model

The results of trial experiments carried out with a computer simulation model of total reflection Xray fluorescence, TXRF system to determine optimum conditions for detecting certain elements of interest under various analytical conditions in a given tenelement standard sample is presented in this paper. Results of these trial experiments show that the detectability of elements improved with increasing applied voltages up to about 43kV for a Molybdenum anode TXRF spectrometer and atomic number of elements. Variation of geometry such as the glancing incidence angle of the excitation beam reflected slight increase in minimum detection limit, MDL values as the angle of incidence is reduced from an optimum value of 1.6mradian to 1.0mradian. The nature of the sample support was observed to affect the detectability of the elements as good detection limits were obtained if gold is used as sample holder..