Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc.

07/15/2025

The 14th of July, 2025, is the 30th anniversary of my materials analysis laboratory, Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc. Within two weeks of the announcement that the recent merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta was going to result in the closing of the Martin Marietta Laboratories - Baltimore laboratory, I incorporated Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc.

I initially provided surface analysis services using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS, also called electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis or ESCA) and a scanning Auger electron microprobe (SAM). Soon, I added thermal analysis services (thermogravimetry or TGA, differential scanning calorimetry or DSC, thermomechanical analysis or TMA, and dynamic mechanical analysis or DMA) and metallographic microscopy. Down the road awhile, we offered infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). We then added energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) to our SEM.

Still later, we added mechanical testing capabilities with the purchase of a used Instron machine and we upgraded its electronic controls and software. We purchased an ultraviolet - visible light or UV-Vis spectrometer. Then came the purchase of our gas chromatography - mass spectrometer (GC-MS), followed by the purchase of our wavelength-dispersive x-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRF). Next, we purchased a 3-dimension high resolution digital optical microscope with surface profiling capabilities and an integrated laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) elemental microanalysis spectrometer. Finally, our last major purchase was our x-ray diffraction instrument (XRD). Through the years, I commonly paid myself less salary than my employees so I could invest more into expanding the laboratory's materials analysis capabilities.

This expanding instrument capability has helped us to provide a wide range of materials characterizations, failure analyses, materials verifications, quality control, detection of hazards, and research and development services. We utilize these capabilities on materials as varied as metals, semiconductors, polymers, glasses, ceramics, composite materials, minerals and other inorganic chemicals, and organic liquids. We presently employ 8 people, counting two interns and two other part time employees.

Today, Howard County, Maryland, presented me with my annual personal property tax bill. My willingness to forgo income, purchase the equipment of my laboratory, and to take on risk, leaves me subject to a large tax bill annually for the value of my laboratory equipment. That equipment depreciates, but if it is in use, it never depreciates below 25% of its initial cost. This is one instance in which inflation is a good thing. At least the expense of purchasing equipment in 1996 is much reduced by the inflation since then, along with the subsequent property tax.

Governments love taking from small businesses. From each according to his ability or capability, to each according to someone's perception of their own need or maybe somebody else's need. The force of government is most easily applied against a minority, such as capable small business owners. Yet, after 30 years, I will continue working for as many more years as I can. I still like solving materials problems and working with the kind of people who share my interest in using materials to improve the condition of mankind.

09/04/2023

Anderson Materials Evaluation has performed adhesive bonding and seal failure analysis services primarily based on XPS surface analysis on samples sent to our laboratory since 1995. Some surfaces cannot be readily sent out for analysis, however. In addition, our customers need to track down where their product is becoming contaminated. Silicones, and sometimes fluorocarbons, are a common cause of adhesive bonding problems.

Consequently, we began providing silicone collection kits in 2016 so our customers can determine if they have a facility or oven silicone contamination problem and how bad the problem is by exposing the collection kit in their facility and sending it back to our laboratory for XPS surface analysis. We provide an Ambient Airborne Silicone Collection Kit, a High Temperature Silicone Collection Kit for ovens, and a Tape Transfer Silicone Collection Kit for measuring surface contamination on facility and equipment surfaces. We can measure silicone and fluorocarbon concentrations on surfaces of the returned kits and relate these concentrations to the degree of adhesive bond weakening. The most common silicone is polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS). We can estimate the relative chain length of any PDMS from high energy resolution XPS spectra sets, which helps to identify the source of the PDMS contamination. To date, we have sent out more than 1600 silicone collection kits and analyzed about 1600 of them.

To read more about this, see

Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc. provides silicone contamination testing kits for detecting and identifying silicone and other contaminants in facilities and ovens. We provide our own silicone-free test kits for the ultra-sensitive measurement of silicone contamination in your facility by means o...

05/19/2023

Kate Anderson is working to improve our website. She is making it load faster, adding pictures, making it more compatible with cell phones, and adding some features. There will be some glitches along the way. It is difficult to rework a 110 page website while keeping it running. In the end, it will be worth it.

02/25/2023

In December 2022, we added a Keyence VHX-7000N Digital Microscope with an EA-300 Elemental Analyzer to our laboratory analytical capabilities. The Keyence microscope provides multi-focal plane image construction, to overcome the narrow depth of field that has long limited high-resolution optical microscopy. We can now image curved and rough surfaces with the entire view in focus much as one can in an SEM. There is the added advantage that one retains local color information, which is a powerful clue to the local chemistry. This instrument is also supported with contamination and grain sizing software. It provides surface profiling and roughness parameter information.

The EA-300 Elemental Analyzer provides Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), which uses a laser to ablate the surface, causing a crater with about a 10 micrometer diameter and a depth of about 5 - 7 micrometers The ejected material creates a plasma over the surface. The de-excitation of the plasma emits photons in the visible and ultraviolet spectrum, which are characteristic of the emitting atoms. This part of the process is optical emission spectroscopy (OES), which is common to other analytical tools, such as ICP-OES. A semi-quantitative analysis of the elemental composition results from the EA-300 analysis. This elemental micro-analysis supplements our other analytical spectroscopies for elemental analysis, such as WD-XRF, XPS surface analysis, and EDS in our SEM.

02/25/2023

01/17/2022

Our wavelength-dispersive XRF spectrometer quantitatively measures the elemental concentrations for the elements carbon and nitrogen and fluorine through uranium to a depth in a material which is commonly 0.25 to 2 millimeters deep. XRF analysis has very low detection limits for these elements, measuring the lighter elements to depths of a 100 micrometers and the heaviest elements to depths as great as two millimeters. These depths depend upon the density of the sample. Solid samples, powders, and liquids can be analyzed with XRF testing. This system has a special crystal for quantitatively measuring carbon and nitrogen, making it unusually useful for polymer analysis. It also has an unusual small spot capability to measure spots of 0.5 or 1.5 mm diameter, as well as the capability to measure areas of 10 mm and 29 mm diameter. Of course, large area measurements offer lower detection limits and greater accuracy of measurement. Ideal sample sizes allow us to use the 29 mm diameter analysis area, with the sample having a diameter between 32 and 52 mm. The largest dimension our sample cassettes can handle is 52 mm. Anything bigger will have to be cut to suitable dimensions.

XRF analysis is often used to detect low concentrations of heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, mercury, and chromium, as well as hazardous bromine organic compounds sometimes found in plastics. XRF testing is commonly used to identify metal alloys. XRF analysis of oils, lubricants, or diesel fuels measures the sulfur, chlorine, barium, calcium, phosphorus, zinc and wear materials concentrations. Lead and manganese in gasoline are also measured. The analysis of concrete by XRF is another key application of XRF testing. Glass, ceramic, mineral, catalyst, and soil sediment materials are readily analyzed by XRF testing.

01/17/2022

Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc. maintains a website, https://andersonmaterials.com, with 110 pages of scientific, engineering, and company information. Yet Google prefers to promote companies offering far less information with its search engine because we do not put enough effort into social media, forcing Google Partners that list highly inaccurate information about our company to correct it, and into collecting enough recent recommendations on Google. Of course Google is incapable to evaluating the scientific information on our website, so it defaults to what it understands. It understands marketing for the common customer with common interests. We think our customers are poorly characterized in such a way. They are not very interested in Facebook and such social media. They want a comprehensive menu of information, not a string of highlights from some moment in time. Our customers are unusually intelligent and rational. When they are doing business, they are not looking for cute pictures of cats or even babies. Nonetheless, no one will even know we exist if I do not waste my time on satisfying Google's highly irrational search algorithm. This subtracts from the time I can devote to solving customer's materials problems.

Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc. is an independent materials analysis laboratory providing materials testing, failure analysis, quality control, materials verification, materials and process research and development, manufacturing problem-solving, consulting, and expert witness services.

11/20/2020

A couple of months ago, we replaced our elderly thermogravimetric analyzer with a new and more sensitive Instrument Specialists Inc. TGA 1000 System with a gas switching accessory. You can learn much more about its capabilities on our website.

11/20/2020

Almost two years ago we added our Thermo Electron GC-MS Trace 1310 with ISQ 7000 and VPI, which you can learn much more about on our website.

11/20/2020

Here is an updated photo of our XPS surface analysis system with our additional small ion pump and mass spectrometer attached in parallel with the three main XPS chambers (introduction chamber, sample preparation and buffer chamber, and the analysis chamber), which allows all combination of chambers to be sample by the mass spectrometer or pumped in many configurations.