Workers decommissioning the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant damaged from the Great East Japan Earthquake and resulting tsunami are at risk of injury with possible contamination from radioactive heavy atoms including actinides, such as plutonium. We propose a new methodology for on-site and rapid evaluation of heavy-atom contamination in wounds using a portable X-ray fluorescence (XRF) dev...

The nanoscale structure of multilayer metal/phosphonate thin films prepared via a layer-by-layer assembly process was studied using specular X-ray reflectivity (XRR), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and long-period X-ray standing wave (XSW) analysis. After the SiO(2) X-ray mirror surfaces were functionalized with a monolayer film terminated with phosphonate groups, the organic multilayer films were a...

This article presents the method of extraction-preconcentration of Lead, Cadmium, and Nickel ions from food samples using the Ghezeljeh montmorillonite nanoclay (Geleh-Sar-Shoor) as a new native adsorbent in batch single component systems. The extraction-preconcentration of heavy metals were carried out by applying the solid phase extraction (SPE) method followed by atomic abs...

Strontium carbonate (SrCO3) is one of the most important strontium compounds that have been used in a variety of technological and industrial applications. In the present investigation, nano-structured strontium carbonate was synthesized by mechano-chemical reaction of celestite ore (SrSO4) collected from Dasht-e kavir, Iran and sodium carbonate during high energy mechanical milling.The milling...

The toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) is one test used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to determine if a waste material is hazardous; the TCLP test is widely used by the environmental testing community. The elements of concern for toxicity are arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, selenium, and silver. As an environmental forensic laboratory, the N...

Metallic elements are required in numerous essential biological processes of the human body. Transition metal elements like iron, zinc or copper bound to proteins (metalloproteins) perform a variety of complex biological functions as catalysts which regulate biochemical reactions and physiological functions in cells and organs. Published reports have been pointing out that excessive accumulatio...

Iodine is enriched and stored in the thyroid gland. Due to several factors, the size of the thyroid iodine pool varies both between individuals and within individuals over time. Excess iodine as well as iodine deficiency may promote thyroid cancer. Therefore, knowledge of iodine content and distribution within thyroid cancer tissue is of interest. X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF) and secondary...

Raman spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis are commonly applied to archaeological objects as a fast and nondestructive way to characterize the materials. Here, micro-Raman spectroscopy and chemometrics on handheld XRF results were used to completely characterize beads found during archaeological excavations in the Congo. Metallic objects, organogenic materials, and glass beads wer...