A PIXE study of vitrification of carnation in vitro culture

PIXE (Proton Induced X-ray Emission) is a well-known method for elemental analyses of specimens in applied studies. In this paper, we report results of an application of PIXE in trace-element analysis of normal and vitrified carnations in vitro culture. Experiments were performed to study the vitrification in connection with the trace elements in carnation tissues. About two hundred PIXE spectra were obtained from seventy samples with an irradiation of 3 MeV protons from the NEC 9SDH-2 Pelletron tandem accelerator. From the PIXE analysis we determined the trace element composition of normal and vitrified carnations. Our results indicate that there is a significant change of K, Ca, Fe and Zn contents in the vitrification process.