The primary purpose of this project was to develop a method for preparing calibration standards that can be used by the wood treating industry to calibrate X-ray fluorescence instrumentation. Calibration standards of penta/P9-oil in southern yellow pine that cover the retention range of 0.2 to 0.9 pcf (0.6 to 1.9 %) were successfully prepared. A detailed procedure for mixing penta in treating solution with ground southern pine is described. Users can choose to reference the penta concentration in the standards based on lime ignition analysis of the treating solution or lime ignition analysis of each standard. XRF measurements of penta concentrations are 5-8% higher than the values of penta in wood measured by the lime ignition or the values of penta in wood calculated on the bases of lime ignition measured penta concentration in treating solution. Standards stored at ambient temperature were stable over a period of 1 to 1.5 years during the time of this study. This study focused on preparation of standards and does not include the effects of boring collection, storage, drying, and grinding on analytical error.

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