Elemental analysis is provided as a Departmental Service. Samples from Teaching Labs are submitted infrequently. Please talk to a Teaching Lab technician about submission before preparing a sample or submitting a form.

Samples should be placed in narrow screw cap vials (as used for mass spectrometry). An absolute minimum of 10 mg is required, but 50-100 mg is preferred, as this makes weighing out the samples for analysis much easier.

Once the sample has been prepared, the submission form found on the Sumission Hub should be completed.

Usually two samples are prepared for analysis. Each sample has 2-4 mg accurately weighed out (to 4 dp of a milligram) into brass sample cups. These samples are submitted to the instrument for analysis along with check standards which confirm the instrument is working correctly.

Once samples have been recorded the results will be returned via email.

CHN results provide a calculated and found value for each analysed element. There are permitted tolerances for the percentages to be considered a match to the calculated values.