Developing Chemical Instrumentation for Environmental Use in the Late Twentieth Century: Detecting Lead in Paint Using Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry

Abstract

This article deals with latter twentieth-century, portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) spectrometry, particularly the emergence of hand-held PXRF instrumentation in the early to middle 1990s. Hand-held PXRF spectrometers provided more convenient, nondestructive chemical analyses in the field, factory, and home. They resulted from attempts to measure lead concentrations in paint in response to US governmental legislation requiring abatement of lead-based paint in residences. The context also included governmental grant support and the organisation of instrumental testing procedures. At the heart of the story were Niton Corporation LLC and Radiation Monitoring Devices, Inc. (RMD). They devised different, although ultimately successful, hand-held PXRF spectrometers with which to detect lead-based paint. By the late 1990s, Niton's expanding hand-held PXRF product line was establishing an imposing presence of the new technology in chemical instrumentation. The scientific, technological and commercial dimensions of the accomplishments at Niton and Radiation Monitoring Devices, Inc. — along with the effects on their activities of lead inspectors and governmental largesse — dominate this account at the interface of environmental history and the history of chemical instrumentation.