Rigaku FirstGuard™ Raman spectrometer

Rigaku (USA) is pleased to announce its newest product offering. The FirstGuard Raman handheld analyser makes its debut in our product lineup. It is expected that the Raman handheld will find its analytical niche in the petroleum industry with ease as it helps to identify and quantify both pure materials and mixtures in liquid and solid forms. The nondestructive technique promises to offer analytical information hitherto not available.

The Raman handheld family is available in three different laser excitation wavelengths, 532, 785 and 1064 nm, depending upon the application for which it will be used. While the 785 nm source is good for refined oil products, such as methanol content in gasoline, the 1064 nm excitation source is particularly useful for crude and biofuels testing. In crude and biofuels, excessive fluorescence can be problematic with the lower wavelength laser sources, masking the signals of interest. The 1064 nm source offers maximum reduction in fluorescence, making this new handheld spectrometer most useful for crude and biofuels testing applications. Engine oil wear analysis has also proven to be an application that the 1064 nm wavelength is most suited to analyse effectively.

The new Rigaku Raman spectrometer also offers a unique Volume Phase Grating (VPG) that maximises the efficiency of collected spectra. Until now VPG gratings have only been available in lab and benchtop Raman systems.