I need help 66 ppm and 6659 ppm

[Jofro]

Hi, I need help to find out how many grams of precious metals in 500grams of catalyst powder. These are the readings in the xrf gun, Rhodium 66 ppm, and Palladium 6659 ppm. total weight of the powder is 500 grams, thanks for your help in advance.

 

[jimdoc]

Don't trust an XRF gun for powders.

 

[g_axelsson]

Hi, I need help to find out how many grams of precious metals in 500grams of catalyst powder. These are the readings in the xrf gun, Rhodium 66 ppm, and Palladium 6659 ppm. total weight of the powder is 500 grams, thanks for your help in advance.

66 ppm is 66 parts per million, so 66*0,000001*500 = 0,033 or 33 mg
6659 ppm is 6659 parts per million, so 6659*0,000001*500 = 3,3295 or about 3,3 g

BUT!!! This is only if you are measuring alloys with all elements known to the XRF. In precious metal mode it will show too large values. For example the ceramics is made out of a mineral containing large amounts of Si, silicon and O, oxygen. If none of those two elements appears then the XRF is blind to it and reports any precious metals as part of what it can actually see.

So XRF is a very good tool but it can be misused or fool you if it's not used on proper materials.

To be sure about how much precious metals there is in a catalyst you have to refine a sample or use a tool that actually can measure the amount of metal in your sample. A good tool is an atom absorption spectrometer or a mass spectrometer.

Göran