About Us
About Us
X-ray Mineral Services was acquired by the Hafren Scientific Group in 2019 and is a comprehensive geo-materials analysis centre offering services in the natural resources sector. The company offers a wide range of analytical services including QXRD, ICP, XRF, FTIR, LIBS, Raman spectroscopy, LA-ICP-MS, SEM-AMICS, geochronology, EPMA, LECO TOC, VRI, petrography, particle size analysis, organic geochemistry and magnetic susceptibility. X-ray Mineral Services has also developed innovative integrated data visualisation and modelling products and presentations in Spotfire® and has machine learning and AI capability.
In addition, we have dedicated multidisciplinary analytical workflows (META) for the oil and gas sector, the construction industry, battery minerals and recycling sectors. The company is also an active researcher sponsoring PhDs and participating in innovative environmental remediation technology with support from the Welsh Government and in collaboration with university partners (Cardiff, Aberystwyth, Durham and Greenwich).
- Mineral, Elemental, Textural characterisation of geomaterials
- High quality data
- Commercial turnaround
- Lab and onsite delivery
- Bespoke applications and workflows
Following successful involvement in the Finnish BATCircle project, an office was established in Finland (X-ray Mineral Services Finland OY) to serve the emerging battery minerals sector across the entire battery value chain from exploration and mine processing to refinement and e-waste recycling. Hafren has also invested in a world leading battery research ecosystem and has a hired a specialist team to develop innovative systems for Finland. XMS Finland are developing a new two-tier multi-disciplinary workflow for the battery ecosystem. This is based on ‘gold standard data’ acquired from high-tech laboratory instrumentation (META1: based on data from QXRD, ICP, XRF and Automated Mineralogy (SEM-EDX)) combined with a methodology to acquire high quality data (quantitative and qualitative) in the field, in the corestore, in the mine and for recycling using state the art portable equipment (META2: based on LIBS, pXRF, FTIR and magnetic susceptibility), and integrated data analysis and interpretation in Spotfire®. XMS Finland will also head up the Group’s international promotion of battery mineral technology.
X-ray Mineral Services was established in 1997 and has evolved into a world leading supplier of high-quality commercial mineralogical data from x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The company focused primarily on the oil and gas sector and provided quantitative whole rock and clay fraction mineralogy data for rock characterisation and reservoir quality studies. The quality of our data is demonstrated by top 10 placement in the world renowned Reynolds Cup.
In the mid 2000s the company also developed a comprehensive x-ray fluorescence (XRF) capability providing clients a comprehensive elemental and mineralogical characterisation service. In addition, the company diversified our services and deployed our techniques for the analysis of geo-materials in other business sectors, including construction, mining, geotechnical and academia.
The quality of our XRF data is demonstrated by strong performances in the GeoPT certification of new rock standards.
Recent consolidation within the Hafren Group, now ensures that XMS can also supply high quality ICP, FTIR, Raman, geochronology, SEM-AMICS, EPMA, LECO-TOC and VRI data and interpretive services, both for high resolution lab based deployments (META1) and for field / onsite applications (META2) The company is also support the promotion of new METSA workflows for REE, P, LI, Co, Ni, graphite characterisation in mineral exploration, processing and refinement, as well as establishing new methods for the analysis of Black Mass and WEEE in the UK and Finland.