Thermo Electron Corporation says its series of X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray powder Diffraction (XRD) spectrometers is ideally suited for a diverse range of environmental applications. Designed for analysis of drinking water, waste water, soils, sludge, air monitoring and spent materials such as paints, plastics and tires, the spectrometers are designed for use in manufacturing plants and contract laboratories as well as in the water, energy, waste disposal and recycling industries.
Thermo has published several application notes to demonstrate the unique analytical capabilities of its XRF and XRD spectrometers, including Thermo's ARL QUANT'X, ARL X'TRA and ARL ADVANT'X that are all specifically suited to the environmental market. These application notes are available to download from www.thermo.com/elemental.
Thermo's suite of WDXRF (Wavelength Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence), EDXRF (Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence) and XRD spectrometers employ fast multi-element techniques. Achieving precise results covering all elements and respective ranges, they also provide detection limits in the ppm range. Additionally, the instruments are particularly easy to install and use while requiring little or no sample preparation and offer flexible sample handling.
The WDXRF and the EDXRF techniques, designed for use with Thermo's ARL ADVANT'X and ARL QUANT'X, are suited to the analysis of waste oils, plastics, paints and contaminated soils, whereas the ARL X'TRA spectrometers used with XRD are mainly used for analyzing particulates in air such as asbestos and quartz. Both XRF and XRD techniques are capable of handling totally unknown samples thanks to the powerful “standard-less” analysis packages such as UniQuant and SiroQuant.
This series of spectrometers has also been designed to help scientists comply with strict European and U.S. regulations, including the RoHS/WEEE directives that aim to reduce the damage to both the environment in terms of pollution as well as to human health from occupational exposure and exposure following disposal.