QUIZ TIME!
Let’s play ‘To fit or not to fit!’
The rules of the game are simple, we give you a spectrum (or multiple spectra) and some background behind what information the researcher wanted and you decide whether or not we need to deconvolute/fit the data or if we can learn all we need from the raw spectra itself. Note – none of these examples are of or even based on real research or researchers.
ROUND ONE

ROUND TWO

In example 2, we see some Ag 3d peaks, which appear to report 2 chemical environments. The researcher identified the lower binding energy signal as Ag metal but was not sure of the identity of the second species.
ROUND THREE

A researcher is looking into some platinum nanoparticles and uses XPS to determine if the resulting particles are metallic. All they want is a yes or no answer, but upon collected the data, they note that the Pt 4f 7/2 and 5/2 are roughly the same intensity.
ROUND FOUR

Analysis of a spent catalyst was performed to look for evidence of carbonate formation. The research question is simple, could carbonate formation cause catalyst deactivation?
ROUND FIVE

XPS was used to determine the level of corrosion of some treated steels. The researcher is very new to XPS and is interested in the oxidation state of the surface.
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