TIMA-X 综合矿物分析仪

TIMA-X is an automated mineralogy system for fast quantitative analysis of samples such as rocks, ores, concentrates, tailings, leach residues or smelter products. TIMA-X combines BSE and EDX analysis to identify minerals and create mineral images that are analysed to determine mineral concentrations, element distributions, and mineral texture properties such as grain-size, association, liberation and locking parameters. TIMA-X can also search for bright phases containing platinum group, gold, silver, rare earth and other minerals.

The collection of representative modal mineralogy data as well as textural and chemical information on statistically significant samples is becoming essential in many areas of Earth and material sciences. Automated Scanning Electron Microscopy (ASEM) systems provide an ideal solution for such tasks. This paper presents the methods and techniques used in the recently developed TESCAN Integrated Mineral Analyzer (TIMA-X) with Version 1.5 TIMA software. The benefits from the use of a fully integrated quantitative energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS) and an advanced statistical approach to ASEM systems are demonstrated. Typically, the system can handle more than 500,000 X-ray events per second. Using a common spectral total of 1000 events this represents the acquisition of 500 spectra per second. A number of measurement modes is available to make the most effective use of these spectra depending on the application.