Saint Mary's College XRF
 
Saint Mary's College of California has a Niton 796 XLt X-ray Fluorescence instrument which is field portable.                   In 2004, chemistry faculty began integrating the instrumentation into the chemistry curriculum following an award from the Dreyfus Foundation Special Grant (# 04-083). 
 
  This photo shows the instrument in the laboratory stand with four samples packed into typical XRF sample cups. (photographed by SJB)  
 

 

Linked XRF pages of this site are still under construction!!

This XRF instrument was purchased after renting other field portable XRFs.  Many rental units have sealed radioactive X-ray sources which have specific regulatory controls.  Our instrument has a minature X-ray tube so it does not require the radioactive X-ray source replacement maintenance.   

The XRF instruments are versatile elemental analyzers.  In many cases, very little sample preparation is necessary to ascertain the elements at the surface of a given sample.  Samples can include alloys, soils, materials on filters, plastics, and painted surfaces. 

 

 

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This instrumentation is currently used in General Science, General Chemistry, Environmental Chemistry and Instrumental Analysis. 

 

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