Latest News and Application Notes

Elements Newsletter recently published an infographic of all of the metals mined from the earth in 2019, and the numbers were staggering. 3,248,814,334 tons of metal were mined, of which 3,040,000,000 tons were iron ore. Nearly 94% of all of the metal mined in 2019 was iron, and nearly that percent of the iron has been, in some way, touched by LECO.

Over the last thirty years, the Dumas combustion method for analyzing protein content in food has been gaining popularity against the classic Kjeldahl wet chemical digestion and titration method. The Dumas method has several advantages over the Kjeldahl method: it is much faster, with much lower operating costs, no real safety issues, and no toxic waste produced. However, there is a debate over which of the two main approaches to the Dumas method is better: a vertical or a horizontal combustion furnace.

The supply of helium for laboratories hasn't been as shaky lately as it has been in recent years, but the price of helium continues to rise. In the meantime, replacement gases keep being tested.

No matter where you are in the urban landscape, you are never more than a few feet from cement. Cement forms the basis of virtually the entire world’s infrastructure. It is an impressively cheap binder that enables a wide variety of building materials. Despite its ubiquity, it is a surprisingly complex mixture of a balance of ingredients such as lime, silica, alumina and more. Knowing what is in your cement is a fundamental check of its quality and strength.

The LECO Analytical Applications Poster Competition (LA²PC) 2020-2021 recently wrapped up, showcasing 15 incredible posters highlighting the applications of LECO instruments in our users' work and research. A hearty congratulations goes to our winners: Karl Hornsby, Martin J. Taylor, Vasiliki Skoulou | University of Hull, Peter Hurst | Biorenewables Development Centre – BDC, and Simon Walker | Jesmond Engineering Limited. Their poster, "Pretreating lignocellulosic biomass wastes for the next generation of solid fuels" is a fantastic look into the search for new solid fuels.