Fundamental Study on the Quantitative Analysis of Sulfide Minerals by Electron Probe Microanalyser (II)

Some comparative examinations on the accuracy of quantitative analysis of sulfide minerals have been carried out by means of the electron probe microanalyser. Detailed discussion on the method using the calibration curve which is adoppted by us in general has been reported as the first report of this series. This report is the second one of the series and contains mainly discussions on the comparison of the analytical errors between two methods of using pure metal and sulfide minerals as standard samples. Several synthetic and natural sulfide minerals of the Cu-Fe-S, the Bi-Sb-S, and Cu-Bi-S systems were analysed and the results are corrected on effects of absorption, fluorescence and average atomic number by using a common equations. The results of analyses are shown in Tables 5,6,7,and 8 with relative errors to the theoretical values. As clearly shown in the tables, the analyses using a calibration curve method and/or using sulfide most minerals which have a similar composition to analysed specimens as standard sample could give the most accurate analytical data in the case of sulfide mineral analysis.