Portable Spectral Services (formerly Portable XRF Services) was established in Perth, Western Australia in 2011. The company began with the mission to provide an independent voice to the ever-increasing portable XRF market. We have since grown substantially to become a unique provider of all kinds of spectral technology, training & licensing. We pride ourselves on delivering a standalone voice for a wide range of services, sectors and products.
PSS collaborates with Autonoma to develop ‘David’: a robot that uses automation to scan, photograph and load samples into the micro-XRF for analysis. In 2024 micro-XRF automation is offered to clients for bulk analysis.
Accompanying this development is PSS’ General Element Material Automation (GEMA) system. GEMA is an end-to-end rapid and non-destructive analysis of samples using XRF technology.
PSS acquire the Bruker Geochemical Research and Documentation Assistant (GERDA). It is an automated table sampler for portable and handheld analytical instruments such as the portable XRF.
PSS were also state finalists in the 2022 Telstra Best of Business Awards for WA in the category of Accelerating Women.
Portable Spectral Services celebrated 10 years in the business in 2021. As a way of acknowledging and reflecting on how far the company had come, PSS released a 10-year series. This series was sent to our newsletter subscribers, with each month looking at a different era of the company. Starting at PSS inception, we worked our way to the present day just in time for our July birthday!
Portable XRF Services changes name to Portable Spectral Services (PSS) to reflect the growth of spectral technology and services offered.
This same year PSS purchased its first micro-XRF, the Bruker M4 TORNADO and a Bruker M4 TORNADO PLUS in 2020.
In 2018 the portable Raman, FTIR, SWIR/NIR and portable XRF technologies were used to undertake a deposit scale evaluation at Sinclair Mine. This was a huge undertaking that began in August 2018. PSS staff spending two-week stints analysing 8 000 drill hole samples and 2 000 grade control samples from the Sinclair Deposit at the Pioneer Kalgoorlie base for roughly three months total.
A result of this study also meant that the Bruker BRAVO Raman had a mineral library developed for the identification of LCT pegmatite minerals created. This library was initially based on the analysis conducted in Kalgoorlie, which was then expanded upon by the generous access and use of private and public mineral collections across Perth.
Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Christabel Brand created her first (of many more) standout custom calibration “Li Index” designed to target lithium for pXRF. This skillset evolved from training by Bruker and resulted in PXRFS offering matrix matched custom calibrations on Bruker instruments.
Pioneer Resources also engaged PXRFS to develop a caesium calibration to capitalise on rare opportunity following their exploration period where caesium was intesected. In 2017 this PXRFS caesium calibration contributed to the discovery of Sinclair Caesium Deposit. This is an incredible discovery as there were previously only 3 caesium mines globally.
PXRFS became the first Australian Authorised Application Solution Centre.
This then expands into PXRFS earning distributorship of Bruker instruments, becoming the Official Australian Sales Partner.
In 2012 PXRFS undertook significant evaluation of portable XRF instruments study. The study focused on the precision and accuracy on individual portable XRF instrument ability to continually provide consistent results on the same certified reference material.
In 2013 this evaluation was presented to the peer reviewed journal Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis and “Performance comparison of portable XRF instruments,” was published on the 4th February 2014. In August 2013, Nigel and Chris were fortunate to present their findings internationally at the Denver X-Ray Conference in the USA in a talk titled “Performance Comparison of Portable XRF Instruments: A Mineral Exploration Industry Prospective.”
As a way to help bridge the limitations of portable XRF, PXRFS purchased its first SWIR/NIR, a Terraspec 4 ASD in 2014. Having a SWIR/NIR instrument as part of the fleet meant that clients looking more into mineralogy could use both portable XRF and SWIR/NIR to gain a more holistic overview of their samples, and therefore answer more questions within potentially one hire period.
1st July 2011 Portable Spectral Services (PSS) launched as Portable XRF Services (PXRFS). The ABN was official, the emails, website and doors were on, open and ready for the first hire to be booked out. The first iteration of the portable XRF hire fleet is complete and clients start using our services.
Portable Spectral Services’ Schedule of Hire, Support Services & Fees is now available!
