Sample Contamination in Analysis of Wood Pulp Fibers with X‐ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy

Abstract

Contamination of wood pulp fiber samples by the ambient in the x‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis was investigated. Various control samples, including platinum foil, cellophane, cellobiose, rayon, cotton, and fully bleached wood pulp fibers, were used for identification and characterization of the contamination sources. It has been found that contaminating material on wood fiber surfaces contains both carbon and oxygen and is responsible for the discrepancy between the true elemental composition of wood pulp fiber surfaces and the composition determined by XPS. A physical model of the contamination has been proposed which allows compensation for the contamination in quantitative analysis of surface lignin by XPS.

Keywords:

• Sample contamination
• Pulp fibers
• X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy
• Kraft lignin
• Surface lignin
• Surface analysis

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank Erco Worldwide for their financial support of this project.