Sample prep for very porous materials (volcanic pumice)

[AnneF]

Hello!

I'm preparing to make an epoxy mount of really porous, fragile pumice fragments and I was wondering if any of you have advice on the best methods to go about it. The last time I tried this, I made a normal epoxy grain mount and then tried to fill in the voids on the exposed pumice with a layer of epoxy under a vacuum, which worked well enough to get data. Is there another method you know of that might work better from the start?

Thanks!
-Anne

[Ben Buse]

Hi Anne,

Sounds a good method!

They have various sample prep methods on the Univeristy of Edinburgh Ion Probe website

https://www.ed.ac.uk/geosciences/facilities/ionprobe/technical/examples-of-sample-preparations

and

https://www.ed.ac.uk/geosciences/facilities/ionprobe/technical/prep

Ben