Electron Microprobe
Electron probe micro-analyzer
The EPMA microanalytical technique is commonly and widely used in fields like metallurgy, geology or glass, for industrial services as well as for public researches. However, this technique is barely known in the field of polymers, even if it can be used to help understanding enhanced or decreased functional properties of materials. Indeed, in X-ray mapping mode, it can help to access the structural morphology of a polymer. For instance, the detection resolution of the EPMA (100 ppm) allows the detection of Ca and S in whey proteins in fouling phenomenon occurring in heat exchanger in food industry, and permit to better understand the growing mechanism of the fouling in order to decrease the prevalence of this costly and undesirable phenomenon. This subject is currently studied in the PRC ANR project “ECONOMIC”, leaded by Prof. Maude Jimenez (ISP, NIHM-UMET) (S. Bellayer et al).
Séverine Bellayer (ISP-UMET)