Quality Control of Power Generation Plant By-Products Coal represents a major contributor to the production of electric power. The large amount of coal used for power generation produces by-products that are deemed deleterious: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate and carbon dioxide. This presentation outlines some of the advances and positive actions taken by the electric power companies to comply with these acts by using by-products of coal burning for electric power. Join us on July 27th as we go over: Coal power generation pollutants Pollution abatement processes By-products produced from pollutants Particle characterization for quality of by-products Particle characterization technologies ... Read More

If you're using dynamic light scattering (DLS) for the measurement of your nano-particles, you may be familiar with the photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS) method. Although PCS is a widely used DLS method of measurement, there is a superior method. Microtrac's proprietary approach to DLS, the frequency power spectrum method (FPS), overcomes the limitations of PCS. Heterodyne FPS gathers data in higher resolution than PCS. Having the detector set to 180° allows to measure in higher concentrations, and to even go on-line. The Microtrac FPS method effectively allows to accurately measure from sub-nanometer to several microns across the widest concentration range ... Read More

Additive Manufacturing (AM), aka 3D printing, is the fastest growing manufacturing process in the world today. One of its many advantages is the ability to quickly manufacture a custom product without the expensive set-up costs required for tooling for mass production. Another is the ability to produce more complex, high strength, custom parts, often without sub-assembly or subsequent machining operations. AM is made up of many different types of operations which range from simple overlay printing, with liquid or filament plastic feed material, for example, to particulate feed ranging from plastics to ceramics to metal powders. Metal Powder AM is ... Read More

Proppants must have smooth surfaces and must be much more spherical than oblong in shape. Characteristics of proppants are known as roundness and sphericity in particle image analysis nomenclature. Roundness and sphericity have been determined visually comparing a small number of proppant particles with 2-dimensional images on a chart displaying different values of those parameters since the 1960s. There is now a commercially available automated analytical instrument which measures size distribution, and many shape parameters, including roundness and sphericity, of very large samples, hundreds of thousands or more, in a matter of minutes. In this webinar we will discuss fracking, ... Read More

What is fracking? Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is a process for drilling and extracting oil or gas from shale deposits. This process has been growing for several decades, but especially rapidly in the last 5 - 10 years. In the past, fracking was the second most expensive extraction method, behind Canadian oil sands. Recent downward pressure on oil prices forced many operations to be closed or temporarily suspended over the last year. This encouraged many major oil/gas producers in the US and Europe to invest heavily in lowering fracking costs by advancing the technology. This progress has reduced break-even costs from ... Read More

Join Terry Stauffer, Particle Characterization Specialist at Microtrac, as he highlights how you can improve your laser melting additive manufacturing process. Laser melting requires highly spherical particles and a minimum number of contaminants to ensure even layering with no point defects in the final part. Find out what you can learn by measuring metal powder size with laser diffraction. We’ll also go over how to analyze particle shapes of atomized powder particles with image analysis, so you can meet high quality specifications. This webinar will focus on laser melting and metal powder applications, but if you are concerned with characterizing non-spherical ... Read More

The PartAn3D analyzer can be run in 3-dimension or in 2-dimension image analysis. In fact, Microtrac offers the only Dynamic Image Analyzers that have a 3D mode of operation, a patented feature. When analysis is run in 2D, every captured image of particles is included in the analysis, which means that each image is an image of one randomly oriented particle. The 2D analysis is only nearly as good as 3D analysis if the particles are close to spherical in shape. When spherical in shape, all reported parameters are almost as accurate in 2D as they are in 3D. When ... Read More

Would you like to collect 3D particle size and shape data of your materials ranging in size from 35um to 35,000um? If you have a need to identify and quantify different particulate components in one sample, this webinar will show you how. This can be easily accomplished with patented 3D image analysis and use of the search query and filter/classification features in the software. Find out what advantages there are with 3D image analysis technology and go over its important advantages over 2D technology. Go in-depth with Microtrac's powerful, patented 3D measurement software. The reporting is simple, powerful and flexible. ... Read More

Measuring particle sphericity for the quality control of granular materials, is a tedious task that can involves sieving, eye tests and perhaps optical microscopy. Although these methods are widely used and accepted, they do present the operator with challenges, not to mention an inaccurate way to ensure optimal product quality. If you're still using sieve analysis for your particle analysis needs, you may be faced with frequent measurement errors such as failing to collect the complete set of particles from each sieve, mis-weighing, incorrect data entry or calculation errors with distribution percent values. Not to mention this method can be ... Read More

Come see us at the following trade shows: Intl Conference & Expo on Advanced Ceramics & Composites (ICACC) - Daytona Beach, FL - 1/22/2017 The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society (TMS) - San Diego, CA - 2/26/2017 Phosphates International Conference and Exhibition - Tampa, FL - 3/13/2017 Inside 3D Printing Conference & Expo - New York, NY - 3/14/2017 International Battery Seminar & Exhibit - Fort Lauderdale, FL - 3/20/2017 Powder Coatings Technical Conference - Indianapolis, IN - 3/28/2017 American Chemical Society National Meeting & Exposition - San Francisco, CA - 4/2/2017 Ceramics Expo - Cleveland, OH - 4/25/2017 Rapid ... Read More