The Use of XRF to Analyze 19th Century Books

Abstract

X-Ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy is used to determine the chemical composition of materials. XRF is a popular way of analyzing sensitive materials because it is nondestructive and can be portable. In this experiment we are using XRF to analyze the chemical composition of 19thcentury books. This experiment is a continuation of work done by the University of Delaware, Winterthur Museum, and Garden & Library’s poison book projects. These works emphasize the need to determine whether the Walker Library Special Collection at Middle Tennessee contains any toxic books. The book that is shown below was tested by XRF. In this poster we review the results of data collected from the XRF scans of the book.