Process control

Elemental / phase analysis of production pipelines

At the core of production quality management is process control, a statistics and engineering discipline that deals with architectures, mechanisms, and algorithms for controlling the output of a specific process. Analytical information, such as elemental analysis, chemical composition, or molecular structure data, is commonly used to provide critical data to the statistical process control (SPC) model controlling the process. X-ray analytical techniques play an important role in many process control strategies.

X-ray diffraction (XRD) is often employed to determine percent crystallinity in a batch of polymer as well as providing polymorph validation in pharmaceutical production. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is used to control many disparate production processes, from the stoichiometry of metal oxides in cement production, to critical additives in plastics and sulfur in fuels. Rigaku offers robust benchtop X-ray instruments that were specifically designed for the production environment.

With the new Rigaku NEX XT, an X-ray Transmission (XRT) process sulfur (S) gauge, refineries and pipelines can easily switch and blend crude oil feedstocks