Product News

High-entropy alloys are a new class of alloys that are composed of four or more metallic elements in approximately equal amounts. ‘‘These alloys have four, five, six different components to them, and, in principle, these can be any metals from the periodic table,’’ says Helen Chan, New Jersey Zinc Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in Lehigh University’s P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science. She and her collaborators from Lehigh’s department of mechanical engineering and mechanics—principal research scientist Animesh Kundu and associate professor Ganesh Balasubramanian—recently received a grant totaling nearly $720,000 from the National Science Foundation to explore a novel fabrication method that involves reducing a mixture of the metallic oxides. The team will begin by simply trying to better understand the process and the range of alloy compositions amenable to this type of processing. Inherent in that is understanding the different oxide mixtures and the associated thermodynamic quantities related to reduction and alloy formation. For this, the team will rely on Balasubramanian’s expertise to identify promising combinations of oxides with the requisite thermodynamic characteristics. The oxide reduction technique could yield a more cost-effective way of making certain high-entropy alloys that perform well in extreme temperatures. For example, they could be substituted for the materials currently being used for cryogenic or aerospace applications.

analyser to the British market. The instrument is British made, is known as the OES 4500 and is available at a frequency of 27.12 mHz or as an arc-spark excitation source for solid samples. It permits the determination of up to 80 elements simultaneously and has a lm rowland circle. The optical system is based on a holographic grating which is said to give good resolution and dispersion, wide spectral range, no ghosting and very lowstray light characteristics.
The system is fully microprocessor automated and controlled and provides visual and printed copy of all data obtained.

Nupro plug valves
Techmation is now supplying Nupro plug valves with handles in 316 stainless steel or aluminium. The handle is machined from 3/4 inch hexagonal bar with a 316 roll pin inserted horizontally through the top.
When the roll pin is removed, the valve can be actuated with a socket wrench extension or an open-end wrench in high temperature or minimum clearance applications and with the pin removed, there is protection against accidental opening and closing. The valve is quick acting, has a high capacity for straight through flow, a 1/4 turn actuation and leak-tight shutoff. Operating temperature ranges from -40 to 204C and the pressure rating is 2000 psi (20 600 kPa). The AMFIA-2000 instrument is the result of development work carried out at the US Department of Agriculture and is described by Plasma Therm as the only completely automated system currently available. The operator programs the run using a simple interactive dialogue and thereafter, the instrument operates unattended until the next tray of samples has to be loaded. Analysis speeds of 150 360 samples per hour are possible, depending on the chemistry involved. Runs encompassing multiple sample trays (135 samples/tray)can be analysed from a single calibration curve. Microprocessor control allows both rapid operation and also easy transfer of methods from a manual or segmented regime onto the AMFIA-2000 and a ready facility for developing new methods. The two detector modules currently available include a filter photometer with a dynamic range of 0-3 absorbance units (spectral range 340-1200 nm) and a Fluro Tec digital filter photometer, wavelength range 254 650 nm which can also be applied in HPLC analysis.
Plasma-Therm is also to market the SMI Zeeman atomic absorption instru-ment in the UK..The instrument is made in West Germany by Erdmann and Grun and has been developed for detecting traces of toxic heavy metals such as Cd, Hg, Zn, As and Se. The Zeeman effect provides background compensation and allows measurements to be made even when smoke or other interferences are present.

Interface system
Ithaco has introduced a new model 488A interface system which provides the necessary interconnections for coupling a variety of Ithaco signal processing instruments to the IEEE 488A standard bus. The interface will simplify the use of Ithaco's pre-amplifiers and lock-in amplifiers in such applications as photoacoustic spectroscopy, photoelasticity studies, fibre optic characterisation studies and automatic thin film coating monitoring systems. Ithaco Inc, 735 West Clinton St, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA.

UV/vis spectrophotometer
There is a new UV/vis spectrophotometer available from Pye Unicam which the company says will be of particular interest to quality control laboratories. The SP7-500 double-beam scanning instrument has rapid keyboard operation, built-in alpha numeric printer, automatic audio-visual error warnings etc.
When used in colorimetric tests, the printer shows both the results and the settings with which they were obtained; in scanning mode the parameters are listed with the absorbance (or % T)and wavelength of the highest peak. A fault diagnosis system is incorporated. Gas chromatograph Spectra-Physics has recently introduced a new generation of gas chromatograph, the SP 7100. The instrument can be used either as a stand-alone system or as part of a multiple GC network and has considerable potential for automation and central laboratory management.
A CRT/keypad interface is used for control and to show complete status of the instrument, including column flows.
The oven is large and has a rapid cooldown facility coupled to very low gradient specifications. Column installation and removal is said to be very easy.
A combination of two packed and two capillary columns may be installed with side-by-side mounting of each type. Full scale sensitivities range from 100 mV to 5 Vrms and operating frequencies span 0.2 Hz to 200 kHz. The amplifier should find application in measuring on the CRT. Each detector has aspecific rometer scan controls, including repeat contribution. The FID analyses 'dirty' scanning between two wavelength or samples silyl derivaties and similar frequency regions. Features include high samples without the need for frequent level interactives software, graphic discleaning and calibration. The TCD has a play of spectra, intensity data display, linear response to 100% concentration adjustable control 'BUG' and intensity in the cell. and transmission or absorption readout The TCD for the detection of nitrogen facilities. and phosphorus is a completely new Anaspec Ltd, PO Box 25, Newbury, design. A dual channel data system, Berks based on the established SP 4100 computing integrator, is available with the chromatograph which when linked with the optional alphanumeric keyboard gives a totally interactive system.

Calcium analyser
Radiometer has introduced the ICA1 video powerful computing facility will allow the user to automate many routine measurements.
The spectrometer is the established 5000 series with all its timing and counting operations controlled by the computer. There is also a facility for scanning the analyser window automatically to give a multi-channel analyser type function. Timing intervals can be selected for single or repetitive counting, and the results displayed in numeric and graphic form on the CRT screen.

Dual-beam LC detector
Perkin-Elmer's new LC-8 5 UV/vis spectrophotometer detector employs a doublebeam optical system to give improved stability and compensation, said to be higher than the established LC-7 5.
The LC-85 allows stopflow scanning and other spectroscopic measurements at trace levels and a wide dynamic range improves quantitative linearity as well as facilitating use in prep-scale LC. An optional 2.4 #l flowcell accessory eliminates band broadening to give good efficiency in high speed LC.

High power image analyser
Artek Systems has launched a computer based image analysis system which, it says, requires no special operator training. The model 800 image analyser has a 64 k byte memory linked to dual floppy disks and VDU screens. Operatol instructions can be displayed on the left-hand screen at any time during an analysis while the fight-hand screen is used to display the image fed to the analyser from a closed circuit television camera attached to the viewing microscope.