The New Milestone Blog

The new Milestone Blog is a global company information center that contains information designed to inform and educate you, as well as keep you connected with Updated documentation, Announcements and events, Company focus and efforts, Guidelines, Success stories, etc.

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Discover how Total could achieve optimum recovery of volatile elements with the Milestone ultraWAVE

12 June 2019
Sales Team

Total is a major energy operator, that produces and markets fuels, natural gas and low-carbon electricity. They are the fourth largest international oil and gas producer in the world, the largest retailer in Africa and the largest refiner and petrochemical producer in Western Europe. Total has an extensive portfolio of oil and gas production facilities, service stations and refineries and chemical sites supported by approximately 98,000 employees in 130 countries.

What's their challenge?

Tags: case study, src digestion, petrochemical

Selecting a Microwave Digestion System for the Unique Demands of the Pharmaceutical Industry

03 June 2019
Application Team

Recent regulations on heavy metal testing have required the pharmaceutical industry to monitor a suite of elemental impurities in pharmaceutical raw materials, drug products and dietary supplements.

Tags: digestion, src digestion, application, pharmaceutical

Overcome memory effect in dioxin extraction on environmental matrices

15 May 2019
Application Team

The environmental department of SYNLAB Linköping is focused on the determination of organic pollutants in different matrices, such as Dioxins and Furans, PAH’s and PCB’s.

Tags: extraction, case study

5 Considerations for Microwave Digestion

02 May 2019
Application Team

Read the top 5 things you want to take into account when selecting the optimal microwave digestion system for your lab.

Tags: Tips, digestion

Determination of trace levels of Hg

15 April 2019
Application Team

It is well known that mercury and its multiple forms are critical contaminants to the environment with severe consequences for food chain and humans. The determination of trace levels of Hg is a must and frequently measurements are performed by converting Hg to a vapor and measuring its concentration either by atomic absorption or by atomic fluorescence.

Tags: mercury, scientific paper

The Impact of Illegal Artisanal Gold Mining on the Peruvian Amazon

01 April 2019
Application Team

Benefits of Taking a Direct Mercury Analyzer into the Rain Forest to Monitor Mercury Contamination

Recently published on Spectroscopy, this column describes the work of Professor Luis Fernandez and his team in the Department of Biology at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, North Carolina, who are leading a project to study the effects of illegal artisanal gold mining using mercury amalgamation extraction on the human and environmental ecosystem of Peru’s Madre de Dios region of the Amazon.

Tags: mercury, article

Safety and reliability

25 March 2019
Customer Support Team

Among the goals for the design of products, the target of ensuring the maximum safety for our users is universally accepted as more compelling issue than other goals of design.
Milestone's Technical Team works hard to achieve this target. That's why we routinely expose Microwave Digestion units to varying combinations of HNO₃, H₂O₂, HCl and HF during the processing of thousands of samples each month.

Milestone's Application Team

14 February 2019
Application Team

Milestone's Application Team works in close contact with lab managers, lab technicians and analytical chemists all around the world.
They are highly specialized in a broad variety of techniques, spending many hours testing and running different samples in our high tech analytical lab.

Tags: application, support

From the President's Voice

31 January 2019
Marketing Team

Franco Visinoni, president of Milestone, founded Milestone in 1988 as the first specialized laboratory instrument manufacturer focusing on advanced microwave technology for sample preparation. Mr. Visinoni says: "Milestone today is a solid company and my co-workers are responsible for their own work. I trust in them and they trust in me. I’ve always tried to create a relaxed climate within Milestone and everyone who visits us can perceive it"

Tags: corporate, investorsinpeople

DMA-80 evo: improved design from the inside out

19 December 2018
Marketing Team

The DMA-80 evo double beam dramatically reduces the signal-to-noise ratio, which greatly improves the quantification limit, enabling accurate and precise mercury determination even at the ppt level. This increased signal stability improves the reproducibility and reliability of analysis even at low concentrations. With the DMA-80 evo, you get the right results the first time, every time.

Tags: mercury, dma-80, product news

Carbon black determination in olefin plastic

05 December 2018
Application Team

The addition of carbon black to an elastomer can have a positive effect upon its mechanical, electrical and physical properties. Therefore, QC and process labs need to determine the exact concentration of carbon to ensure product quality and monitor production costs. A rapid determination of the carbon black content allows quick feedback to production and for adjustment when required. A standard approach to this analysis is ASTM D1603, which provides gravimetrical determination of carbon black content following a lengthy pyrolysis step under nitrogen.

Tags: ashing, crucibles, black carbon

Bringing new strategies fully compatible with modern trace analysis

20 November 2018
Application Team

Nowadays, after three decades of technological development, it is clear that microwave-assisted sample preparation is not just fast heating, but also brings new strategies fully compatible with modern trace analysis. This statement is crystal clear when working with ultraCLAVE and ultraWAVE instruments. Based on the Single Reaction Chamber (SRC) technology, these instruments allow reaching pressures of up to 199 bar and temperatures as high as 300° C depending on the reaction vessel.

Tags: src digestion, scientific paper

SYNLAB improved productivity and detection limit thanks to the ultraWAVE

11 November 2018
Sales Team

Since 2014, SYNLAB Linköping invested in multiple ultraWAVE units to help reduce their sample prep bottleneck. These systems exceeded their expectations, increasing the sample digestion capacity of our laboratory by 100%, while reducing costs, and significantly improving digestion quality.”

Tags: src digestion, user profile

THINK GREEN

05 October 2018
Application Team

For the first time the concepts and significance of green chemistry are applied to microwave digestion. The goal of the authors was to produce a text that helps today’s trace organic analyst understand and overcome the difficulties of sample preparation by learning how to THINK GREEN.

Tags: book, src digestion, green digestion

Determination of Heavy Metals in Cannabis Plants with Closed Vessel Microwave Digestion

30 September 2018
Application Team

The cannabis industry is currently one of the fastest growing industries. This growth is fueled by recent revelations in the potential benefits of cannabinoid therapies for various medical conditions. Although systems for growing production and sale of cannabis related products are well established, regulation and enforcement of quality and safety testing have lagged, such as the testing of heavy metals.

Tags: digestion, cannabis, article

Microwave green extraction - Modernizing Trace Organic Analysis

22 February 2018
Application Team

The purpose of organic trace analysis is to obtain information about the organic molecules present in the sample matrix of interest.
So why is organic trace analysis so hard?
There are millions of organic compounds that have been characterized in the chemical literature, with still millions more that are waiting to be discovered. The biggest problem with organic trace analysis is isolating the single compound of interest from the rest of the organic soup.

Tags: book, src digestion, green digestion

Milestone puts 30-years of experience in sample prep at your fingertips.

12 December 2017
Marketing Team

The new Milestone CONNECT (www.milestoneconnect.com) is a unique feature for your best-in-class system that puts Milestone 30-years of applications experience at your fingertips. By choosing ETHOS UP, ETHOS EASY, UltraWAVE or DMA-80, you will get exclusive access to the knowledge and experience of the Milestone Application Team: continuously updated application notes, library of scientific papers, video tutorials, system manuals at any time – 24/7.

Tags: milestone connect, digestion, mercury

EnviroTest Laboratories could expand its company to include the Organic Department

12 November 2017
Marketing Team

Milestone's Extraction Technology helps increase productivity and lower operating costs for Environmental Testing Laboratory.
EnviroTest is a full service environmental laboratory. EnviroTest accomplished their mission by adding a full Organic Department, gaining a reputation as a trusted leader in water and soil testing services for the Hudson Valley serving NY, NJ and CT.

Tags: extraction, organic compounds, user profile

ultraWAVE allows polymer analysis lab to tackle difficult samples for elemental analysis

25 October 2017
Marketing Team

Elemental analysis of polymer systems is frequently inconclusive or erroneous if the sample is not completely digested. Together with the Milestone UltraWAVE and traceCLEAN acid steam cleaning system, we have the capability to tackle the most difficult samples while reaching detection limits in the parts per trillion (ppt) range.

Tags: src digestion, user profile, testimonials

ultraWAVE awarded as the most innovative product in sample prep

16 October 2017
Marketing Team

UltraWAVE was awarded as the most innovative product in sample preparation for metal analysis
Milestone & Labtech are present at BCEIA in Beijing China with a large booth and a series of dedicated seminars on different applications We are very proud to announce that during the show our UltraWAVE has been awarded as the most innovative product in sample preparation for metal analysis.

Tags: digestion, src digestion, success story

Unilever counts on Milestone’s UltraWAVE to reach very low detection limits

16 September 2017
Marketing Team

Unilever has joined the list of our happy customers!
Customer Unilever is a Dutch-British global company co-headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands and London, United Kingdom. Unilever manufactures a wide range of consumer products, owning over 400 brands around the World including food, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products.

Tags: src digestion, user profile, testimonials

UltraFAST Crucibles

07 September 2017
Application Team

The UltraFAST crucibles allow the PYRO user to dramatically reduce the overall ashing time, from start to end thanks to their innovative material that allows the samples to be surrounded by a constant airflow. They are made of an innovative material that, although chemically and thermally resistant, allows the samples to be surrounded by a constant airflow which, in turn, accelerates the ashing process. The ashing time is therefore reduced.

Tags: ashing, crucibles

New advances in microwave-assisted green chemical processes

06 September 2017
Marketing Team

The Department of Medicine Science and Technology at the University of Turin could emphasise the fact that efficient, sustainable and scalable synthetic protocols require the last generation of microwave reactors (synthWAVE and flexiWAVE), as irreplaceable tools in modern chemistry for the unique versatility to carry out new experiments in a wide range of operative.

Tags: synthesis, user profile

Heavy crude oil digestion with SRC

06 July 2017
Application Team

Elemental analysis of heavy crude oil is important for a variety of reasons including region of origin, maturity, migration, type, and identification of potential challenges that could arise during the refining process. There are numerous challenges with analysis of heavy crude oil with most being centered on the sample prep process due to the complexity of the sample matric.

Tags: digestion, article, petrochemical

Proudly made in Europe

21 January 2016
Marketing Team

Milestone decided to invest in Europe: our R&D centers and production facilities are located in Italy, Germany and Switzerland. We are proud that we are able to produce our systems respecting high quality standards required by EU.
We have a strong global brand with a long heritage in microwave sample preparation as well as an open vision to explore new horizons for further growth.
We continuously review and improve our products and processes. We have a long lasting commitment in helping chemists in their daily activities.

Tags: corporate