When one equals two: Chemometrics turns Mossbauer spectrometer into X-ray fluorescence one

Here we explore the feasibility of using classical Mossbauer spectroscopy setup in scattering geometry to assess the elemental composition of samples using characteristic X-ray fluorescence. Even though, the scintillation detector of Mossbauer spectrometer yields rather low spectral resolution spectra, this can be effectively compensated using chemometric data processing. This hypothesis was first checked with simulated spectra of steel samples and afterwards was confirmed with real experiments. The results of Ti, Cr, Mn, Ni, Nb and Mo quantification in real steel samples obtained from Mossbauer spectrometer were compared with those obtained with commercial energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) spectrometer. In case of Ti, Cr and Ni the accuracy attained with Mossbauer spectrometer was similar to that of an ordinary commercial EDXRF device.