We receive many enquiries from customers and potential customers regarding sulphide reference materials in the form of Nano-Pellets. As a result, we have been thinking for a long time about developing one or more sulphide Nano-Pellets to close this gap. The development involves a number of tasks that need to be solved, which makes the development very expensive. However, thanks to funding from the state of Schleswig-Holstein and the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection, we are now able to realise the project.
The importance of a Sulphide-Nano-Pellet
There are a number of important metals for the mining industry (including iron, copper, zinc, lead and tin) that occur in a chemical composition with sulphur, known as sulphides. In order to deal with the mining of these in an ecological and resource-saving manner, prior chemical analyses of soil samples from potential mining areas are absolutely essential. The classic wet-chemical analysis methods are time-consuming, harmful to the climate and, of course, not without danger due to the use of acid. For the more harmless and time-efficient variant of chemical analysis directly on site on the solid, there is unfortunately a lack of suitable standards. However, in order to provide sulphide standards in the form of our Nano-Pellets for chemical solid analysis, there is a big challenge that needs to be solved: sulphides are naturally very reactive and oxidise under atmospheric conditions. We will solve this challenge in this project and present a suitable sulphide standard to the community.
Realisation of the project with the help of funding
As the development of this standard requires more development work than most other materials, we are delighted to have received support from the ‘Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz’ and the ‘Schleswig-Holstein Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Verkehr, Arbeit, Technologie und Toursimus’. We started the project at the end of last year and plan to complete it in mid-2025.
