Company Announcements

XRF Scientific increased its shareholding in Gestion Scancia, a manufacturer of X-ray fluxes, from 20% to 50% in fall 2013.

In January, Helmut Fischer acquired IfG-Institute for Scientific Instruments, its longtime partner for polycapillary optics.

The UK’s University of Leicester Space Research Center announced a collaboration with Bruker Elemental to develop a handheld mineral analyzer for mining applications that combines X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF).

Resonetics and Australian Scientific Instruments (ASI) established an alliance for marketing, development, manufacture and support of the RESOlution laser ablation product line. ASI will be responsible for marketing and sales. The alliance is the first step toward ASI’s acquisition of the product line later this year.

Product Introductions

Olympus introduced in October 2013 the Xpert, a transportable XRF analyzer optimized for consumer products and RoHS regulatory compliance programs.

In November 2013, Hitachi High-Tech Science introduced the EA1000AIII XRF system for screening hazardous substances. It reduces measurement times by a third compared to the EA1000AII but is the same price.

LECO released the 736 Series oxygen/nitrogen analyzer for analysis using the inert gas fusion technique. It features an improved detector design.

In December 2013, Oxford Instruments launched the handheld X-MET7500 Mining Analyzer, based on XRF, for on-site mining and soil analysis.

In January, Agilent Technologies introduced the 7900 inductively coupled plasma (ICP)–MS, a completely redesigned ICP-MS system, featuring a novel interface design and up to 11 orders of magnitude dynamic range. The company also introduced the 4200 microwave plasma–atomic emission spectrometer, featuring application-specific software applets and new MP Expert software.

In February, Exeter Analytical introduced an entry-level manual version of its Model 440 Elemental Analyzer for determining percentage levels of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen.

HORIBA introduced in February the new ULTIMA Expert ICP–MS spectrometer, featuring a unique plasma torch design.

In March, Shimadzu launched the XRD-6100 OneSight and XRD-7000 OneSight XRD systems, featuring an array detector with 1,280 channels.

Sales/Orders of Note

In February, Analytik Jena announced a contract to supply 22 multi N/C series instruments for the analysis of water quality in the Chinese province of Henan.