A comparison of microbeam techniques for the analysis of corroded ancient bronze objects

Abstract

This paper describes the use of several microbeam analysis techniques for the chemical characterization of corrosion compounds on ancient bronze objects. They include optical microscopy, SEM-EDX, TOF-SIMS, SR-FTIR, SR-XRD, and XANES. The objective is to investigate which combination of analysis methods is most suitable for this type of application, taking into account aspects such as limited sampling and the ability of obtaining spatial information. Results show that SR-XRD in combination with optical microscopy and SEM-EDX is able to provide a complete description of the layered structure both on elemental and molecular level.