The Condensed Matter & Surface Sciences Colloquium Series presents Greg Petersen of TSI Inc. in Shoreview, MN, on Commercialization of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy for Rapid Elemental Analysis of Metallic Alloys, on Thursday, April 26, at 4:10 p.m. in Walter 245. This presentation is co-sponsored by the Nanoscale and Quantum Phenomena Institute.
Greg Petersen
Abstract: Scrap metal recycling has become a big business both in the United States and globally. In fact, most steel produced in the US is derived from recycled products rather than freshly mined ore. For a successful recycler, the correct and rapid identification of materials is paramount to financial success. Currently, most scrapyards either use traditional methods such as acid testing or spark analysis to identify materials or an XRF handheld analyzer. Both methods have disadvantages; the former is slow, inaccurate and requires expert knowledge while the latter poses a radiation hazard and generally cannot identify lighter elements very quickly. Thus, the industry is beginning to turn to Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy which until recently was not mature enough to be a major industrial player.
In this talk we will introduce you to this technique, give a demonstration of the ChemLite Plus handheld analyzer from TSI Incorporated and more generally discuss how a theoretical physicist can flourish in today’s global marketplace.
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