| Author | Message | ||
     Mike Davis (Thermafleece) |
We are a company that manufactures thermal insulation made from sheep's wool. We add a diatomaceous earth/silica gel dust which acts as an insecticide. We need 1% by weight dosage for this to be effective. Would NIR specroscopy be able to tell us whether or not sufficient dust had been added? The wool would be scoured to remove lanolin and vegetable matter but would contain other mineral dust. | ||
| David W. Hopkins (Dhopkins) |
Mike, It is possible that you could get a result such as Yes/No for presence of diatomaceous earth, but at the level of 1% additions, I doubt that you could obtain quantitation to say +/- 0.1%. A lot would depend on the uniformity of diatomaceous earth/silica gel dust and its spectral features. Do you have other applications, so that with this you could justify the time and expense of purchase and calibration of NIR instrumentation? I have learned that I should seldom say in advance that an application cannot be done. Perhaps a feasibility study with a vendor would help. Best regards, Dave | ||
| Dennis Karl (Dennisk) |
Mike, Unless you have to do many analysis a day, in which case you may have to look at some sort of automated system, why not just do a simple ash test on a before and after addition basis and get the levels of addition by difference? Regards Dennis | ||
| Gabi Levin |
Hi Mike - Lets try to be practical- 1. Both materials don't cary strong NIR signature 2. The compounds are strong adsorbers for moisture. 3. It is possible, that if your compounds are always saturated with moisture, and they can uptake quite a bit of water, you will be able to correlate to the water that the powder brings with it. If the moisture content in your compounds is not "constant", and water is what you pick on, your measurements will go haywire. 4. It is worth a try. I will send you an e-mail with proposal where to try to do the feasibility. 5. I assume that you need to perform many such checks, so a fast, convenient diffuse reflectance unit should be your choise, if it works. I hope I contributed something. Gabi Levin Brimrose |