PhD student Matthew Grima has recently carried out PIXE-PIGE[1] analysis of Phoenician, Roman and Early Christian archeological glass artefacts belonging to the National Collection. The glass was examined at the Louvre AGLAE[2] ion beam analysis facility in Paris, France. In this part of his study, Mr Grima is after determining surface degradation patterns and the elemental composition of the glass artefacts in support of Malta’s first glass provenance study. He was accompanied to the ion-beam facility by his Supervisor Dr Daniel A. Vella.
This follows from last year’s visit to the Soleil Synchrotron Facility, Paris, France, where the same glass objects were examined by sychrotron-XRF and XANES. This earlier analytical work focused on the impacts that the environment inside the manufacturing kilns had on the composition of the glass, more specifically the speciation and ratios of elemental iron and manganese. Mr Grima was accompanied to the synchrotron facility by his Supervisor Dr Daniel A. Vella and Dr Sophie M. Briffa.
Mr Matthew Grima is reading for a part-time PhD at the Metallurgy and Materials Engineering Department within the Faculty of Engineering. Funds for this mission were made available through an IPERION HS transnational access grant. Mr Grima’s PhD is supported by the Tertiary Education Scholarship Scheme (TESS).
- PIXE-Particle Induced X-ray Emission; PIGE - Particle Induced Gamma Emission
- AGLAE - Accélérateur Grand Louvre d'Analyse Elémentaire
