BCA Industrial Group XRF meeting 2021
After no meeting in 2020, for obvious reasons, the annual Industrial Group XRF meeting returned as a Zoom meeting on 10th November 2021.
45 delegates, from 6 different countries, registered for this meeting. 6 speakers gave presentations from all over the world.
Mike Dobby (Consultant, Dronfield UK) gave a talk entitled "What has changed in XRF technology in the last 20 years". He talked about how advances in XRF detectors had changed XRF analyses. He also talked about the challenges of doing XRF at home with a hand-held spectrometer.
Tanya Norris (Wagners Cement, Pinkeba, Queensland, Australia) gave a talk entitled "The importance of XRF analysis in a cement plant". She talked on how fused beads are made of cement samples to make sure that the cement follows Australian composition standards.
Michael McKee (University of Leicester, UK) gave a talk entitled "How can we use x-ray fluorescence to solve 'The Mercury Mystery'?". This fascinating talk was about the planet, not the element! His Ph.D thesis work concerns an XRF detector on the BepiColombo spacecraft currently en route to the planet. XRF will be used to help to find out how the planet formed.
Alex Husbands (Aqua Force Recycling, Wolverhampton, UK) gave a talk entitled "Using XRF for industrial waste analysis". This was about how XRF is used to characterise unknown waste samples so that waste materials can be safely disposed of or recycled.
Konstantin Brendgens (Fluxana, Bedberg-Hau, Germany) gave a talk entitled "Sulfuric Ores: Fusion with gas and electrical machines". Preparing fused bead samples for XRF with metal sulfide samples can be challenging as these sulfides can damage platinumware. Pre-oxidation of sulfide to sulfate with a metal nitrate means that fused beads can be safely prepared without having to replace expensive platinum crucibles.
Zach Dismukes (Bowman Analytics, Schaumburg, IL, USA) gave a talk entitled "Using XRF for plating thickness analysis on a wide variety of materials." XRF can be used to determine the thickness of metals coated on substrates from the relative intensities of XRF lines for the different elements involved.
As usual there was also the sponsor session where representatives of 6 different sponsors gave short talks on their XRF instruments and materials.
In spite of some hiccups with Zoom the meeting was a success. The provisional date for the next meeting is 15th June 2022, when it is hoped that a face to face meeting (with a possible Zoom component) will take place at Sheffield Hallam University.
A.M.T.Bell - Sheffield Hallam University