inXitu's Terra: an XRD Standard for Shale Cutting Analysis

Campbell, CA, January 04, 2011 --(PR.com)-- inXitu is pleased to announce the newly updated TERRA field portable XRD/XRF analyzer, designed for the analysis of minerals commonly found in petroleum drilling applications. The timely, in-situ, analysis of core drill cuttings is increasingly important as part of the on-going effort to maximize production efficiency within the gas and oil industries.

XRD/XRF mineral composition identification – the analysis of shale cuttings - is critical to understanding a geological formation investigation and the subsequent selection of a site for drilling and its predictive model.

Rocks have a story to tell, valuable mineralogical information fundamental to making production decisions that can save the petrochemical and gas industries billions of dollars. inXitu’s next generation TERRA, with new quantitative analysis methods, is part of that success story.

TERRA provides complete on-site XRD/XRF analysis of the common, and not-so common minerals found in both oil and gas environments, where previously the advantages of X-Ray have been confined to the laboratory. An application study is available on request.

About inXitu, Inc.
inXitu Inc. is a leader in portable XRD/XRF based instrumentation. They specialize in developing the technologies required to enable the next generation of scientific instruments used for materials analysis. The technology used in their portable rock and mineral analyzer received the prestigious R&D 100 award and has been chosen to fly on the Mars Science Laboratory, Rover, scheduled for launch in 2011.

inXitu’s powder handling methods can dramatically improve the quality of XRD data while reducing the requirements for sample preparation. Their patented technique makes possible quality XRD data to be collected regardless of the grain size of the sample. Grain sizes up to 400 um have been tested producing data normally obtained with micron size particles.

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