Chemical Analysis Laboratories

Chemical analysis laboratories are a critical resource for both material and product manufacturers as they provide essential third party technical data and analysis services that are used to identify the contents, composition and quality of the materials they use in their product development, manufacturing and in-service support activities.

Chemical analysis services to identify the content, composition and quality of materials

Element’s global team of chemists are continually trained in the most advanced techniques to provide a wide range of chemical analysis services. Whether you seek to verify a material certification or to obtain a detailed breakdown of an unknown material, we have the expertise to help you select the proper method for your application and end goals.

Our chemical analysis service range includes:

Material Verification

Manufacturers across all industries rely on material verification services to ensure that the material they are utilizing has a chemical composition consistent with their materials certification documents. Element provides clear and concise test reports that state the results of the chemical analysis along with a comparison to the acceptance criterion (pass/fail). This allows manufacturers to “spot check” material lots and often serves as an investigatory first step for warranties and issues related to in-service failures.

Material Identification

Sometimes, the identity of a material can be completely unknown, due to lost certifications or ambiguity over the material’s origins. In these cases, Element’s chemists utilize their chemical analysis expertise to select numerous analytical techniques and perform advanced data analysis to uncover the complete chemical breakdown of a material. This allows Element to identify any material recovered from the field, salvage unknown material that would otherwise be scrapped, and reverse engineer or deformulate existing materials, products or components.

Chemical Composition Analysis

Our chemical composition analysis teams utilize a combination of techniques to identify chemical composition, determine chemical quality, and identify any impurities.

Contaminant Detection & Residue Analysis

When a residue or an unknown substance appears where it should not, identifying the contaminant quickly and accurately is crucial to correcting any underlying issues. Element’s investigative chemical analysis service teams have a wide range of equipment and techniques at their disposal, including SEM/EDS (Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy), XRD (X-Ray Diffraction), and FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy).

Our Chemical Analysis Techniques

The chemical analysis techniques we use include:

• Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy – both flame (AA) and graphite furnace (GFAA) Atomic Absorption
• Combustion Analysis
• Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC)
• Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA)
• Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (ED-XRF)
• Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR)
• Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC-FID, GC-MS)
• Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC)
• High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)
• Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP)
• Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES)
• Positive Material Identification (PMI)
• Pressure Differential Scanning Calorimetry (PDSC Oxidation)
• Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)
• Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA)
• X-ray Diffraction