Hi all,
So my name is Joshua Henkin. You may not know me, but I am a PhD candidate with a program in Chicago (currently working with an external committee member in Columbus, OH).
Peter Zieba and I are two of the three directors for a 501(c)3 you may or may not know about called Analytics Lounge. Our location's a bit out of the way at 4910 W Grand Ave, but this is incumbent upon us at the moment because we do not have disposable income for rent.
Currently we have a working scanning electron microscope (with an energy dispersive X-ray detector that we could be using, though it requires liquid nitrogen), a gamma spectroscopy unit, and at least one compound light microscope and probably sundry other things. We are far along in the process of making an inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometer usable in our space, and we also have a couple atomic absorption spectrometers, at least one of which is analogously far along I believe.
While we are working on a couple of different National Science Foundation solicitations and eyeing some smaller opportunities in order to 1. retain people who are currently invaluable volunteers, ideally by paying them and 2. gain the resources we need ultimately to move into a permanent, stable home, there is one immediate opportunity that, if we can avail ourselves of it, would help round out our capabilities. I also believe it would be of great interest to researchers and environmental justice activists and many other folks in the Chicago area.
See, there has for some time been a program through the instrument company Bruker where excess instruments would be held separately until the end of the year and made explicitly available for purchase by 501(c)3s only. These are discounted to 20% of market price, and so in this case the pXRF units remaining are $12,000. These are
Bruker Tracer 3 units to be specific, and these individuals they're selling in particular can do EVERYTHING. They are meant as research instruments, but they have every calibration that Bruker has ever come up with loaded onto them. So they can do anything that a scientist would want to out in the field in assessing rocks, minerals, metals, soil, etc. qualitatively and quantitatively in terms of their compositions (from sodium through uranium at least), whatnot, but it can also be used by people in manufacturing to assess the particular grade and source of a metal, say, using pre-loaded databases on the instrument. These are handheld instruments that are only 4-5 lbs., and it comes with a hand strap and a number of other accessories. It can be used as and has all the capabilities of a benchtop instrument but can be used outdoors on the go for geological, ecological, and environmental monitoring applications!
The trouble is... I found out that Bruce Kaiser, the creator of the Tracer line of pXRFs for Bruker is retiring from the company. If we cannot lock down this instrument by December 29th of this year, then the opportunity to get this severely discounted highly useful instrument vanishes FOREVER. As of last year to my knowledge, though, the purchase of this equipment would mean that Bruce would automatically -- for free -- fly out to Chicago on a plane and train whoever's around on the use of this unit for a couple of days (normally Bruker would assess a company $5000 for that time and effort).
