The major application for Thermo Scientific spectrometers is in the field of industrial production control, an area where market requirements have evolved rapidly in recent years. Fully automated XRF and OES systems are now commonplace and are increasingly employed both to improve quality and to reduce operating costs.

In both the metals and minerals industries, fully automatic preparation and analysis of production control samples can be supplied as part of complete factory tested systems. These may be installed in locations most suited to your particular operating environment, either in a central laboratory or in an analysis cabin supplied by our company and positioned as close as possible to the production process. The associated savings in both labor and operating costs and major improvements in analysis consistency and quality lead to substantial financial benefits and often result in very rapid payback of the initial investment. 

What Automation ?

Thermo Scientific X-ray fluorescence spectrometers have been fitted with systems for automatic sample loading since the 1960s. Today, sample changers with 12 loading positions are fitted as standard on our XRF systems. Optional circular or larger XY magazines provide for reliable sample handling. Combined with powerful Thermo Scientific automation software, these systems called SMS-OMEGA and SMS-XY allow unattended operation of the automated XRF system for many days. For production control applications where high speed and ultimate flexibility are required, the SMS-2000/SMS-3000 robotics-based systems are the ideal solutions.

Automating optical emission spectrometers came a little later since a higher technology solution was required to accommodate the movement of samples between sparks. This milestone was achieved in the mid 1980s when Thermo Fisher Scientific was the first supplier to introduce fully automated sample preparation and analysis with OES spectrometers. A robot system was employed to optimize the combined requirements of speed and reliability. A third generation system has been introduced by Thermo Fisher in 2002: the Thermo Scientific ARL SMS-2000. More than 400 automation systems for Thermo Scientific OES have been installed in a variety of metals applications improving productivity at customers' sites around the world.