Portable XRF spectrometry: innovation for sustainable projects

LITOCLEAN’s X-ray fluorescence analyzer streamlines soil characterization work and avoids emissions and waste.

Sustainability is one of the key objectives in this new era we live in and we all have an important role to play in achieving it. The soil investigation and remediation sector has long been committed to green techniques and at LITOCLEAN this has become a major goal. To achieve it, the company is aware of the technological innovations that allow it to achieve successful results in its projects but with the least possible environmental impact.

In this line, the consulting firm has a portable XRF analyzer. This tool has the capacity to quantify a large number of elements at concentrations in the ppm range (specifically, it quantifies P, S, Cl, K, Ca, Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Rb, Sr, Zr, Mo, Ag, Cd, Sn, Sb, Ba, Hg, Pb), which means that the aforementioned toxic elements can be analyzed immediately and in situ.

Portable XRF spectrometers have the advantage of being a field-based, non-destructive tool, allowing the battery-powered analyzer to be carried to the sample rather than moving the sample to the laboratory. This avoids the emissions generated by the transport and speeds up the processes, which is especially useful for the characterization of large volumes of soils. In this way, the action plan to be followed is determined at the desired time and place.

X-ray spectrometry has many possible applications, but LITOCLEAN uses it in its environmental projects mainly for metal analysis, waste classification, investigation of plots with potentially polluting activities and control and delimitation within contaminated soil remediation projects.

In addition to the possibility of characterizing large soil stockpiles from excavations, XRF spectrometers can also be used to estimate the evolution of metal concentrations at different depths during the execution of pits and boreholes, which creates geological profiles indicating the effect of metals present in the subsoil at depth.

The commitment to technological innovation results in efficient, sustainable methods that provide very useful functionalities for soil investigation and remediation projects.