Field Portable XRD/XRF Instrument Wins Gold Prize for Innovation at Pittcon 2009

A recently launched field portable XRF/XRD instrument developed by inXitu Inc. (USA) has been awarded the Editors’ Choice Grand Gold Prize as the most outstanding new product at the 2009 Pittcon conference and technical exhibition (last March, in Chicago). The Pittcon Editors’ Choice Awards are intended to recognise the best examples of innovative and creative instruments showcased at the exposition and are selected by an independent voting survey of registered press members attending the conference and trade-show. Pittcon is a flagship annual event in the analytical equipment industry, typically attracting over 25,000 attendees and over 1,000 companies, many of whom time their new product releases for this exhibition.

Terra is the world’s first combined X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction instrument designed for field applications. Completely contained, Terra allows for remote operation in environment where the advantages of X-Ray diffraction were not formally possible.

Patented technology makes possible the collection of high quality XRD data regardless of the grain size of a sample, providing identification and analysis solutions in a wide variety of applications.

Bradley Boyer, CEO of inXitu states, "We are thrilled to be honoured by the press members attending Pittcon. I’ve been attending Pittcon since 1985 and can surely attest to the significance of this award. To be placed in the same category as many of our industry’s most innovative products is truly an important moment for us and the ever expanding field of portable analytical instruments."

inXitu specialise 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 analyser received a prestigious R&D 100 award and was chosen to fly on the Mars Science Laboratory, Rover, scheduled for launch in later this year.