A Schulman is using a range of microscopy equipment from Leica Microsystems for quality control, customer service and development in the plastics industry
James Barrell, development technologist said: "We looked around at competitive systems and were very impressed with the Leica equipment which was versatile and very robust.
The Leica DM LM compound microscope and Leica MZ6 stereomicroscope, with a hot-stage microscopy facility, are used for plastics applications at our site.
The microscopes are used to show the cross-sectional structure of co-extruded films for packaging applications, and to determine pigment dispersion quality in our products for in-house quality control and product development.
They can also be used for failure analysis of finished articles.
The MZ6 stereomicroscope allows examination of larger specimens and requires minimal sample preparation.
Barell continued: "The Leica DC 200 digital camera is interchangeable between the two microscopes and allows us to collect digital images for on-screen analysis and incorporate them into reports.
On-screen analysis allows several people to view the image at one time, which is important for subjective analysis.
The Leica IM 500 software is user-friendly and lets us store and measure images which we use for reports and for building a library for product comparison." He concluded, "We are very pleased with our Leica representative who is very professional, well-prepared and has shown us the full capability of the equipment."
