Who is Umicore?

The history of Umicore goes back more than 200 years. It all started with the coming together of a number of mining and smelting companies, which gradually evolved into the materials technology and recycling company Umicore is today.  Their core business in this plant is as follows. Jewellery & Industrial Metals Cobalt & Specialty Materials Electro-Optic Materials Precious Metals Refining Rechargeable Battery Materials Platinum Engineered Metals The department where we started the Sample Handler projectis Rechargeable Battery Materials.

What is the application?

Umicore Korea’s samples are mostly oxides, hydroxide of Li, Ni, Co and Mn at different stoichiometries. The analytical system they used was an ICP-OES, Agilent 5110. For trace element analysis, their lower limit is at the few ppm level. However, they would like to aim for sample concentration (matrix concentration) of 2-4 g/L. Most of their matrices are Li, Ni, Mn, Co oxides. The digested samples are planned for two types of ICP analysis: (1) quantification of trace elements (ppm) and (2) quantification of matrix elements (wt%).

Umicore Korea’s expected work flow:

• Digest 1g of sample in HCl acid (25 ml, 36 wt%) in block heater
• Addition of internal standard solution (10 – 25 ml) into the digested sample
• Dilute the digested sample with DI water for ICP minor (trace element analysis) => aiming for 250 ml volume (however, the biggest SCP tube is 100 ml tube… need to adjust the dilution factor)
• Weight the solution
• Pipette solution from step 3 (1-5 ml), into another tube (preferably 250 ml, but we only have 100 ml tube,.. need to adjust our dilution factor). Then weigh the pipetted solution.
• Addition of internal standard solution into solution of step 4 and fill with DI water => sample to be analyzed by ICP major component analysis
• Weigh the final solution

 ** Umicore would like to improve their sample preparation workflow (to be as automatized as possible) by using DigiPREP heating blocks and a liquid dispensing system (Sample Handler)

DigiPREP										EasyPREP

What was the result?

Accuracy:

It was a long journey testing the Sample Handler in Korea to meet Umicore’s tight requirement on accuracy and precision. They desired that the instrument meet the ISO 8655-3 Standard and Umicore also referred to a Metrohm Piston Burette,that they previously used, where the deviation on 10, 20, and 50 ml syringes is +/- 0.2%. The syringe we use on Sample Handler is 25ml, also with a deviation of +/- 0.2%.

Results:

Normalization was not an issue and the Sample Handler always met the Class A specifications of the DigiTUBE used in the Normalization tests. The challenge was dispensing for a new operator who did not have experience with our Sample Handler. After dozens of the tests, we successfully achieved the following results after YLP, our dealer corrected the offset values usinghelp from SCP SCIENCE.

Offset: -4.1 Temperature: 27C. All data met acceptance condition. 

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For more infomation, please contact:

Red Star Vietnam Co., Ltd.

Email:  info@redstarvietnam.com

URL:   www.redstarvietnam.com