Abstract
A method for quantitative mineralogical analysis by ATR-FTIR [1] has been used first time for analysis of historical mortars. Mixtures of different minerals and gypsum were used in order to measure the minimum band intensity that must be considered for calculations and the detection limit. In this way, the molar absorptivity coefficient in the Lambert–Beer law and the components of a mixture in mol percentage can be calculated. The GAMS equation modeling environment and the NLP solver CONOPT (©ARKI Consulting and Development) were used to correlate the experimental data in the samples considered. The characterization of the vernacular mortars by FTIR analysis identifies the predominant minerals of the samples, and in conjunction with XRF and XRD, shows the exact composition of historical mortars, which will optimize the restoration and conservation of monuments, preserving our heritage.
Highlights
The need for new, cheap, and fast analysis techniques has led to research in new technologies, those based on spectroscopic methods
In aqueous media, calculating the molar absorptivity of the Lambert–Beer law is easy, and it can be used for component concentration calculations since an aqueous, constant concentration matrix exists
The X-ray fuorescence (XRF) of this sample coincides with the FTIR analysis, showing high amounts of CaO and SiO2
Summary
The need for new, cheap, and fast analysis techniques has led to research in new technologies, those based on spectroscopic methods. ATR (attenuated total reflectance) is a spectroscopic method frequently used with IR spectrophotometers (absorption recording method) This technique has been widely applied in mineralogical studies [2] including ancient pottery [3] and ceramics [1]. In aqueous media, calculating the molar absorptivity of the Lambert–Beer law is easy, and it can be used for component concentration calculations since an aqueous, constant concentration matrix exists. In solid media, such as soils, clays, mortars, or ceramics, this may not occur and the problem is more complicated, having to take into account that the main components are silicates that provide signals within the same wavenumber range [1]
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