Thanks for tuning in again! I am sorry for the delay in posting, but things do pile up a bit when I am out traveling... yeah, it's just a lame excuse, but I'm sticking to it!
NACE was a great experience, and not only for seeing the new offerings of other vendors and service organizations. It's also great see friends and colleagues I haven't seen in a while, and to meet new people and make new connections. We talked to a lot of people and I was surprised at how many different industries were involved in preventing, detecting, arresting and remediating corrosion!
As one of the Verichek BoothBoys, I was there with my friend and colleague, Tom Lambert. He is an awesome guy to work with, and if you are lucky enough to meet him, you will quickly see what I mean.
We had several instruments there for demonstration which drew a lot of attention. Of course the handheld XRF analyzer is popular wherever we take it, but the handheld arc instruments were the real attention grabbers. The one we brought for detecting the risk of FAC (flow accelerated corrosion) was of particular interest.
At a corrosion conference. Imagine that. Duh.
Well, since this is "Know Your Metals!" (and since I've brought it up) the instrument is a handheld spectrometer with specific sensitivity to chrome in the iron grades used for piping systems. Just like chrome on a bumper or faucet, the chrome in the pipe protects it against various types of corrosion. If there isn't enough chrome... well, unlike in your bathroom, where you risk staining the tile (Gads!) in a nuclear plant, you are gambling with safety... and lives... and the environment. It is surprising how much uncertainty there is out there! Gives me the willies sometimes...
I digress...
The handheld spectrometer operates by drawing an arc to the metal, which evaporates a small amount of the metal into the plasma of the arc. The elements from the pipe, now suspended in this energetic plasma, glow brightly. The spectrometer separates the different colors of light with a diffraction grating; kind of like a prism. Each element shines a different set of colors, which the instrument detects and reports as the relative concentration of different elements... TA-DA! Now you know if there is the proper amount of chrome in the pipe to protect it from the corrosion I spoke of. Yeah! SCIENCE WINS AGAIN!
Well, that was what we took to appeal to the corrosion engineers who were participating in the conference. And you know, it was a good success too! Now... not to put too fine a point on it, but there were a lot of guys there, and a gun that shoots an arc to metal and figures out what it's made of, well I can't help it, that is just damn cool to guys like me... Yes ladies, I am confirming that (as those of you who were attending with your guys already know) we are fascinated by bright lights and shiny objects.
The Salt Palace Convention Center was a nice place to have the event and the event and exhibit was well organized! There weren't long lines to battle with and the Freeman event labor was friendly, courteous and helpful. By the way, if you attend exhibition events, please take a moment next time to thank the guard or the janitor or other staff that makes these events possible, they work very hard and receive little recognition. Tell them you appreciate them. It matters.
All in all I was pretty impressed with the event! I have to say though, I was a little disappointed with the catering. As exhibitors, we put in long hours there and have little chance to get away. The meals should be good and there should be enough food for everyone. While the food at NACE was edible, it ran out WAY before all the exhibitors were fed, and I wouldn't order it from a menu.
Well, we made a lot of contacts, enjoyed the company of our fellow boothies and I learned a few things from the other folks I talked to. I wish that I had been able to spend more time talking to individuals (as opposed to talking to people, if you can understand what I mean) because I would be able to LEARN SO MUCH.
Well, next is a local AFS conference in my back-yard (Seattle), then a while in in Los Angeles, and then ISRI in Las Vegas... wow... looking at it, I am going to be running for a while!
Well I tell you, starting a blog is like anything else, the more you do it the better you get. I'll try to be a little more regular with my postings.
I hope you find what I bring here at least interesting. If you want to leave a comment, I would appreciate the feedback! I want to make this something you like to read, so let me know what kinds of things you want to understand better. I can't promise I'll have all the facts, but I'll do my darnedest to explore it with you so we will all know more!
Until next time!
Walter
www.verichek.net
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
Off to SLC for NACE!
Hello again! I'm going to apologize for the lack of formatting! I'm posting from my iPad and for some reason, the carriage returns don't work!
Well, me, my computer, iPad and iPhone are headed off to the beautiful Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City Utah. I'll be joining friends and colleagues, doing our best to arrest corrosion in it's tracks! Or at least be able to predict when and where it is likely to occur... you know... whatever works best!
Knowing your metals is crucial to understanding metal corrosion. Of course, there are the obvious examples; you don't try to store corrosive materials in vessels that will react to the contents, but there are other, more insidious things lurking about that can cause corrosion, and failure (and heartache, and job loss, and injury, and contamination... Ok, waxing dramatic, but it's still true!) so even before detecting corrosion, knowing that you COULD have a problem is a invaluable first-step to making sure it never happens in the first place!
A problem seen in some piping systems is a phenomenon called Flow Accelerated Corrosion, or FAC. I will be demonstrating an instrument in SLC that is designed to measure the chrome in piping components and report on the likelihood that FAC will be a problem in that part. Chrome is a major element in making iron based alloys resistant to corrosion... that's why it's on the steel grilles, wheels and bumpers of older cars (well, and to look cool and shiny and stuff too...)and it performs a similar function in the metal of pipes and valves (the corrosion protection, not the cool, shiny stuff) but ONLY IF there is enough of it! By analyzing the chemistry of the metal in a pipe, and determining the amount of chrome it contains, you can tell how likely the part is to experience this type of corrosion.
All very fancy, I know!
So if you are in SLC and want to see this kind of stuff, drop me a line here (Verichek@me.com) and I'll sneak you in under my jacket... Or i could email you a pass you can print out so you can come see us at booth 1818... You choose...
See you there!
Walter
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
...why folks, it will even cure toothaches!
Thanks for checking in again! Welcome back.
After talking about XRF and OES analyzers last time, I thought I had better talk about some of the challenges that users might face with these technologies. I don't want folks to think there are no limits to their special, magical powers! Hopefully I can offer a few tips to help improve the results and experiences people have using them. I'll start with handheld XRF for this episode.
Before I get into any trouble here and have metal samples crashing through my windows, I want to say that I am not claiming to be an expert or have all of the correct theoretical answers. What I will be sharing here will be (largely) based on my experience, but will be flawed and imperfect, just like me. What I do bring to the conversation is some years of experience, both in manufacturing and sales, of handheld XRF analyzers.
Anyway, handheld XRF is a powerful technology and a great tool to have in your arsenal. These fully featured spectrometers can help you prevent mix-ups, as I highlighted in my previous issue (man was that guy grumpy after that demo!) they can also help you sort scrap or recycled materials to feed new processes. They can be used to screen out inappropriate materials as with lead in toys. They can even be used in mining applications (mining applications are fraught with challenges, not the least of which is having no real "dirt" standards, but I'll talk about that another time) to help determine ore quality. But, as with all things, they have limitations and weaknesses.
The most frequently cited limitation I hear of XRF is... Drum-roll please!
Carbon
Yep. Carbon.
XRF cannot now and likely will never be able to see carbon and there's no use whining about it! Quit asking when it will be available too! (I'm talking to you David!) It's just not in the cards for a handheld device, and the reason is physics.
XRF analysis is all about the x-ray energy that atoms can absorb, which pushes electrons out of their orbits, and the energy atoms emit when electrons fall into the holes left by those pushed-out electrons. Carbon is a very light element. It doesn't have many electrons that are in tune with x-rays and can be pushed out by that energy. Furthermore, when an electron does get pushed out and one falls in the hole it left behind, the little photon it emits is a weak one and can't travel far. It gets swallowed up by pretty much anything it runs into, even air.
It isn't until the sodium-magnesium range of materials do you start getting x-rays that can actually get into a detector IF they can make it through all the air, window materials and other stuff waiting to suck them up! And then it's only about 6 or 7% of them that get to the detector to form a signal. Almost sad...
So you see, carbon analysis ain't gonna happen with handheld XRF anytime soon! Fortunately there are methods for measuring carbon in metals, OES being one of them, though admittedly, there are more precise methods than OES but they tend to be a little more pricey to operate, with more chemistry, additives and consumables involved. With proper sample prep and data averaging, OES can do a respectable job...
But I digress, dang it, we're talking about XRF here so let's get back to it.
This same issue arises when you are analyzing aluminum with XRF. Aluminum and many of the alloying elements used in it are light elements and provide wimpy x-rays. The vast majority of XRF analyzers out there aren't even able to measure the x-rays that aluminum, magnesium and silicon emit. To get around this, many analyzers will instead look for the copper and iron and other heavier elements that are alloyed with aluminum to make identification guesses.
About 5 years ago, SDD hit the market and aluminum analysis became much better. Silicon Drift Detectors offer greatly improved count-rates (how many x-ray photons per second can be measured) over standard SiPIN detectors, sometimes by a factor of 10 or more. Sensitivity improvements inherent in SDD structure also mean better signals from these weak photons.
But since such a low percentage of the photons make it into the detector, aluminum analysis can be improved by using longer analysis times, and I recommend 20-40 seconds at least, sometimes more for 3000 and 5000 series alloys
Well, I better wrap it up; it's a blog not a novel! Until next time!
Walter
Verichek Instruments
After talking about XRF and OES analyzers last time, I thought I had better talk about some of the challenges that users might face with these technologies. I don't want folks to think there are no limits to their special, magical powers! Hopefully I can offer a few tips to help improve the results and experiences people have using them. I'll start with handheld XRF for this episode.
Before I get into any trouble here and have metal samples crashing through my windows, I want to say that I am not claiming to be an expert or have all of the correct theoretical answers. What I will be sharing here will be (largely) based on my experience, but will be flawed and imperfect, just like me. What I do bring to the conversation is some years of experience, both in manufacturing and sales, of handheld XRF analyzers.
Anyway, handheld XRF is a powerful technology and a great tool to have in your arsenal. These fully featured spectrometers can help you prevent mix-ups, as I highlighted in my previous issue (man was that guy grumpy after that demo!) they can also help you sort scrap or recycled materials to feed new processes. They can be used to screen out inappropriate materials as with lead in toys. They can even be used in mining applications (mining applications are fraught with challenges, not the least of which is having no real "dirt" standards, but I'll talk about that another time) to help determine ore quality. But, as with all things, they have limitations and weaknesses.
The most frequently cited limitation I hear of XRF is... Drum-roll please!
Carbon
Yep. Carbon.
XRF cannot now and likely will never be able to see carbon and there's no use whining about it! Quit asking when it will be available too! (I'm talking to you David!) It's just not in the cards for a handheld device, and the reason is physics.
XRF analysis is all about the x-ray energy that atoms can absorb, which pushes electrons out of their orbits, and the energy atoms emit when electrons fall into the holes left by those pushed-out electrons. Carbon is a very light element. It doesn't have many electrons that are in tune with x-rays and can be pushed out by that energy. Furthermore, when an electron does get pushed out and one falls in the hole it left behind, the little photon it emits is a weak one and can't travel far. It gets swallowed up by pretty much anything it runs into, even air.
It isn't until the sodium-magnesium range of materials do you start getting x-rays that can actually get into a detector IF they can make it through all the air, window materials and other stuff waiting to suck them up! And then it's only about 6 or 7% of them that get to the detector to form a signal. Almost sad...
So you see, carbon analysis ain't gonna happen with handheld XRF anytime soon! Fortunately there are methods for measuring carbon in metals, OES being one of them, though admittedly, there are more precise methods than OES but they tend to be a little more pricey to operate, with more chemistry, additives and consumables involved. With proper sample prep and data averaging, OES can do a respectable job...
But I digress, dang it, we're talking about XRF here so let's get back to it.
This same issue arises when you are analyzing aluminum with XRF. Aluminum and many of the alloying elements used in it are light elements and provide wimpy x-rays. The vast majority of XRF analyzers out there aren't even able to measure the x-rays that aluminum, magnesium and silicon emit. To get around this, many analyzers will instead look for the copper and iron and other heavier elements that are alloyed with aluminum to make identification guesses.
About 5 years ago, SDD hit the market and aluminum analysis became much better. Silicon Drift Detectors offer greatly improved count-rates (how many x-ray photons per second can be measured) over standard SiPIN detectors, sometimes by a factor of 10 or more. Sensitivity improvements inherent in SDD structure also mean better signals from these weak photons.
But since such a low percentage of the photons make it into the detector, aluminum analysis can be improved by using longer analysis times, and I recommend 20-40 seconds at least, sometimes more for 3000 and 5000 series alloys
Well, I better wrap it up; it's a blog not a novel! Until next time!
Walter
Verichek Instruments
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