Thermo Electron Corporation's NITON Analyzers business unit is pleased to introduce the new NITON XLt 898He – the first truly nondestructive portable analysis tool for light element content in alloy material. The XLt 898He provides fast, laboratory-quality chemical analysis of light element content in aluminum and titanium alloys, as well as nickels, superalloys, stainless steels and more.

Material inspection is intensely critical in certain industries such as aircraft and aerospace manufacturing, since human lives depend on the proper performance of alloy components. A simple material mix-up on a commercial aircraft can be disastrous. On a spacecraft or commercial satellite, it can mean millions of dollars, and years of effort wasted. For a scrap recycling facility, misidentified material can result in a returned load and a loss of consumer confidence.

NITON XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence) analyzers are well known for their ability to quickly and reliably provide accurate alloy material verification, and have become the worldwide standard for material analysis in industries ranging from primary metal production to scrap metal recycling.

In the past, inspectors or scrap metal sorters have been forced to turn away from the convenience of portable XRF for analysis of light element content such as magnesium, aluminum, silicon and phosphorus. Now however, Thermo's new NITON XLt 898He system takes the analytical capabilities of portable XRF to a new level. The NITON XLt 898He system fills the interior of the XLt's unique measurement head with pure helium, purging atmospheric air from the x-ray analysis path, and allowing light element x-rays to contact the XLt's high-resolution x-ray detector. As a result, NITON XLt operators can now confidently measure light element alloy content with the same analyzer that they use to test high-temp alloys - a feat previously impossible with a handheld, portable analyzer.