Universal Minerals Database for identification of minerals to be used for exploration, industry, and academia: Time-gated Raman spectral libraries for fluorescent minerals

Raman spectroscopy is used for analysis of minerals for two main reasons: 1) instrumentation sensitivity, and 2) “libraries” of spectra used as reference for a range of minerals. However, even the industry-best Raman libraries have <3000 out of the>5000 approved mineral species, partially due to the fluorescence that obscures Raman measurements. Fluorescence and Raman effects have different lifetimes which can be used to shutter the fluorescence, and pass the photons emitted by the Raman effect to a detector. Time-gated Raman spectroscopy will be used to build a library of minerals that have been excluded from existing libraries. This application will be used to examine minerals related to potash, lithium, and uranium exploration and environmental management. These emerging Raman libraries will also be made available for the agriculture and high-tech materials sectors. This project will establish the standard for Time-gated Raman spectroscopic libraries with the only high-throughput Time-Gated Raman spectrometer in Canada. Prairie Tide Diversifies and the Saskatchewan Structural Sciences Centre will cooperatively offer analytical service under ISO 17025 to clients.

Faculty Supervisor:

Yuanming Pan

Student:

Partner:

Prairie Tide

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

University of Saskatchewan

Program: