Major, Minor & Trace elements in materials

Major, Minor & Trace Elements in Materials
- Practical Electron Microscopy and Database -
- An Online Book -

Microanalysis | EM Book http://www.globalsino.com/EM/

Table 1380. Definition of "major", "minor" and "trace" elements in materials.

Definition	Mass fraction	Weight percent (wt%)
"Major" elements	C > 0.1	10 wt%
"Minor" elements	0.01 ≤ C ≤ 0.1	1–10 wt%
"Trace" elements	C < 0.01	1 wt%

X-ray peaks can be misidentified no matter whether they are generated from major elements or minor and trace elements due to different reasons (page1747), especially with automation function on EDS software.

On the other hand, in general, Figure 1380 shows the behavior of peak-to-background ratio and minimum mass fraction (detection limit) as a function of overvoltage. In order to be able to detect minor elements, the overvoltage must be not less than 2, while the overvoltage should be much bigger if the detection of trace elements is needed.

$Behavior of peak-to-background (P/B) ratio and minimum mass fraction (MMF) as a function of overvoltage$

Figure 1380. Behavior of peak-to-background (P/B) ratio and minimum mass fraction (MMF) as a function of overvoltage. "Major": major elements, "Minor": minor elements, and "Trace": trace elements.

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