Rigaku Corporation has announced the publication of a new application report on the Rigaku Supermini200, the world’s only benchtop WDXRF spectrometer and the latest in a series of revolutionary compact WDXRF systems from Rigaku.

Application Note #5040 addresses the analysis of raw meal in cement production and covers sample preparation, method calibration and repeatability.

Cement is among the most important materials in the construction industry and reliable knowledge of what goes into the kiln is essential for producing the right cement for the job.

Due to the nature of raw meal and the many difficulties it presents to chemical analysis, wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WDXRF) has become the analytical technique of choice in cement plants.

Traditional floor-standing units, however, require considerable space and accommodations, including a special electric power supply and cooling water.

The Supermini200 offers comparable precision and resolution, as well as excellent sensitivity for light elements - the largest constituents of raw meal - in a lower-cost benchtop package, giving cement manufacturers a new compact and convenient alternative to the large, high-power WDXRF spectrometers.

The pressed powder method is the most common sample preparation technique in XRF because it does not require an expensive flux, fusion machine, or highly-trained operators.

The report demonstrates that cement raw meal samples can be routinely analyzed by the pressed powder method with excellent accuracy and precision on the Rigaku Supermini200 Benchtop Sequential WDXRF Spectrometer.

A copy of this application report may be requested on Rigaku’s official website at http://www.rigaku.com/products/xrf/supermini/app5040.