The X-600 fluxer: What it does

The X-600 fluxer is the new reference for electric fusion in today's rugged, busy lab environment. Downtime is dramatically reduced, thanks to its revolutionary heating elements that are resistant to flux and chemical attacks. Heating elements can be changed individually, and will not become brittle.

The furnace heats up to the required temperature in less than 15 minutes in the morning, and will then remain ready for quick startup of a new batch of XRF beads or ICP solutions. Automatic active power monitoring in the furnace achieves extraordinary temperature stability from one run to the next, and across all crucibles in the furnace.

The X-600 is pre-loaded with various fusion methods that can be used as is, or can be customized. All fusion methods can be saved, renamed, deleted or copied, just like computer files. Only the preset methods are protected to avoid accidental overwriting.

Upon turning the instrument on, the furnace door opens, the platinumware holders move forward and out of the furnace, and the door closes.

Up to six (6) platinum crucibles are loaded with a few grams of powdered sample, an appropriate flux and often other agents. The crucibles are inserted into the crucible holder.

Platinum molds are then installed onto the mold holder, and the safety shield can be closed. Since the platinumware holders are made of ceramics, there is no risk of contamination during the fusion.

When the user instructs the X-600 to launch the actual fusion, the safety shield locks, and then the oven door automatically opens, the platinumware holders enter the oven, the door closes and all heating steps are automatically started in sequence. Temperature is constantly monitored and displayed. An ambient LED lighting system switches to the color red.

The back-and-forth rocking of the crucible holder continuously mixes the flux with the sample.

When the flux melts, it starts dissolving the sample. When all sample is dissolved, the oven door opens, the platinumware holders move forward and, during the time the door closes, the crucibles are tilted forward to empty their contents into the molds.

Twin blowers located underneath cool the molds, while the oven remains powered, to gain time. When the molds are completely cooled, the ambient LED lighting system changes from red to blue, and the user is informed to pick up perfectly homogenous glass beads, ready for analysis by XRF.

For solution preparation, the hot melt is poured into unbreakable beakers (instead of molds), which contains an acid stirred by an optional magnetic system.