A former firing range is destined to become an upscale executive neighborhood. Your job is to simply remove the layer of lead-contaminated soil. Here’s why you should consider bringing a NITON x-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzer with you when you go.

First we’ll look at a traditional job, using an off-site wet-lab for sample analysis.

The initial site characterization used a cell grid to plot the 25 acre site. Core samples were collected at 2 meter intervals on the range floor, 1 meter intervals on the berms, and 4 meter intervals in the safety zones, all at depths of 0, 1, and 3 feet. The resulting contamination contour required soil removal to depths ranging from 2 to 6 feet.

After the D9 Cat removes the soil, you will collect samples at the same grid points, and determine if further soil removal is necessary. So far, it’s a routine job, but time is money. That D9 Cat is costing $1,500 – 3,000 day for the dozer and driver. (Getting the 49 ton dozer delivered takes permits, route planning, and even police escorts in some locations – so asking for a couple of extra days can increase costs significantly.)

The lab is a good one, you’ve worked with them before, you know exactly how they like their forms filled out, and exactly how they like the samples prepared. There will be no delays at your end. You send the samples FedEx, overnight, and wait for the results – 500 samples at $18 per sample. A sample set will cost $9,000.

Two days later, you’re still waiting for the lab results. Your entire team is back in town at the bar. You’re sitting in your motel room, working over the budget numbers in an effort to make the lab delays fit your original estimates. You don’t dare send the D9 back until you’re sure that the original contamination contour maps were right, and that you’ve removed all the contaminated soil. If you haven’t, then you’re in for another round of lab tests, and back to the motel to wait.

Now let’s look at the same case study, with the use of a NITON XLi 700 Portable XRF Analyzer. The added ability to perform rapid, in-situ testing in full compliance with EPA Method 6200, Field Portable XRF Spectrometry for the Determination of Elemental Concentrations in Soils and Sediments dramatically changes your bottom line.

Thermo Electron Corporation manufactures the NITON line of x-ray fluorescence (XRF) elemental analyzers. These laboratory quality portable instruments put rapid, accurate results for RCRA and other elements right in your hands, right in the field. Their ability to analyze soil in-situ, providing reproducible, defensible results in seconds make the NITON XLi/XLt/XLp Series Analyzers indispensable tools for professional field use. The speed and portability of your NITON analyzer allows you to increase the sampling density, while the nondestructive nature of the NITON XRF analysis allows you to collect and send a representative number of your measured samples to the lab for confirmatory analysis.

This time your crew is following the D9, (at a safe distance) rapidly confirming the lead levels of the remaining soil by simply placing the XLi 700 on the ground. Thirty seconds later, you know how much lead remains in the soil, and you can immediately remove another foot. By the time you ship your reduced set of samples off to the lab for third party confirmation, you’re comfortable sending that $1,500/day D9 back. There is no second round of samples, because the NITON XLi 700 ensured that you knew the results before you sent the samples in.

Those high-priced homes will be going up in no time.

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Phone: (800) 875-1578 E-mail: sales@niton.com Web: www.thermo.com/niton