A Selective Fragmentation (SELFRAG) device for liberating minerals, microfossils from rocks: more efficient, effective and safer for the UK community.

高压材料破碎设备（商业上称为SELFRAG实验室），用于英国研究人员沿沿着进行有效的无尘样品破碎。NERC科学的很大一部分需要分析从固体岩石中提取的材料（矿物，化石）。从岩石中提取的矿物或化石的质量直接影响从其分析中获得的数据。例如，对于U-Th/He热年代学，解释矿物的“冷却年龄”需要了解晶体的几何形状，对于其他过程（宇宙成因核素定年），纯化溶解的矿物分离以获得暴露年龄，影响年龄的不确定性。因此，对于几乎所有的研究应用，完整的对象（而不是碎片）是非常可取的，往往需要。研究人员越来越多地从难以进入的地方获取样本，而且材料数量有限。这适用于对偏远地区的考察，其中物理限制和物流限制了样本大小，以及在科学钻探中，材料的体积受到岩心宽度的限制。在这些情况下，确保从少量岩石样品中最大限度地回收高质量的矿物或微化石非常重要。通常，获取样品的成本可能高达数千英镑（考虑到单个岩心的钻探和回收成本可能高达数十万英镑）。商业高压碎裂装置现在是商业上可获得的（SELFRAG）。与传统的破碎和研磨工艺相比，这种设备具有三个主要优点：（1）从岩石中释放的材料质量提高，整个晶体（而不是碎片）和微体化石可以常规回收，从而增强后续分析和衍生科学（见下文）。社区的经验是，与传统破碎/研磨的非可行性相比，SELFRAG分离的一些岩石可以使样品具有可行性;（2）更快的加工时间-通过SELFRAG进行加工与传统破碎和研磨相比快约6倍（30分钟对比3小时，包括清洁时间），显著提高了工艺效率;（3）所需的样本量更小-对于常规岩石，由于高质量矿物/微化石的产量更高，估计样本量可以减少2至3倍。在样本量有限的情况下，这变得越来越重要，即，在偏远地区的野外工作，或者当使用来自科学钻探的样品时（例如，国际海洋发现计划为基础的研究）。(4)岩石的“无尘”破碎，有效地消除了用户接触灰尘和有害物质（例如，石棉、天然放射性物质（NORM）。样品处理在水中进行-大大减少了对个人防护设备和/或与灰尘相关的提取的需求。英国的高压选择性破碎装置（SELFRAG）将为整个研究界提供上述广泛的好处，提供更安全和更有效的工作方式，并提高从岩石中释放的材料的质量，这将直接改善后续分析。最后，这是一项相对较新的技术，仍在探索和开发新的创新，例如使用高压来研究岩石破裂所需的能量，或使用高压破碎来实验材料回收（即，什么是最有效的方式来碎片的iPhone和恢复的稀有元素重新使用）。

High voltage material fragmentation device (commercially known as a SELFRAG lab) for effectively dust free sample fragmentation along grain boundaries, for UK researchers. A significant portion of NERC Science require the analyses of materials (minerals, fossils) that are extracted from solid rocks. The quality of the minerals or fossils extracted from the rocks directly impacts the data derived from their analyses. For example, for U-Th/He thermochronology, to interpret the 'cooling age' of a mineral requires knowledge of the crystals geometry, for other processes (cosmogenic nuclide dating) the puriting of the mineral separate that is dissolved to derive an exposure age, impacts the age uncertainty. Thus, for nearly all research applications, complete objects (as opposed to fragments) are highly preferable and often required. Increasingly, researchers are getting samples from difficult to access places and the amount of material is limited. This applies to expeditions to remote locations where physical limits and logistics limit sample size, and in scientific drilling where the volume of material is limited by the width of the drill core. In these cases, ensuring maximum recovery of high-quality minerals or microfossils from smaller volumes of rock sample is really important. Often the cost of obtaining samples can be many thousands of pounds (considering a single drill core can cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to drill, and recover). Commercial high-voltage fragmentation devices are now commercially available (SELFRAG). Such devices present three major advantages over conventional crushing and milling processes: (1) IMPROVED QUALITY OF MATERIALS liberated from rocks, whole crystals (as opposed to fragments) and microfossils can be routinely recovered enhancing subsequent analyses and derived science (see below). Experience in the community is that some rocks that SELFRAG separation can make the samples viable compared to non-viable with conventional crushing/milling;(2) FASTER PROCESSING TIMES - processing via SELFRAG vs. conventional crushing and milling is ~6x faster (30 minutes vs. 3 hours, including cleaning time) resulting in significant improvements in process efficiencies; (3) SMALLER SAMPLE VOLUMES REQUIRED - for regular rocks estimated that sample size can be reduced 2 to 3x due to the higher yields of high-quality mineral/micro-fossils. This is becoming increasingly important studies where sample size is limited, i.e., fieldwork in remote regions, or when working with samples from scientific drilling (e.g., International Ocean Discovery Program based research).; (4) 'Dust-free' fragmentation of rock effectively eliminating user exposure to dust and harmful substances (e.g., asbestos, naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM)). Processing of samples is carried out in water - a much reduced need for personal protection equipment and/or extraction related to dust.A high-voltage selective fragmentation device (SELFRAG) for the UK would provide the broad benefits outlined above to an entire research community, providing safer and more efficient ways of working, and improved quality of materials liberated from rocks that will directly improve subsequent analyses. Finally, this is a relatively new technology and new innovations are still be explored and developed, for example using high-voltage to study the energy required for rock failure, or using high-voltage fragmentation to experiment with materials recycling (i.e., what is the most effective way to fragment an iPhone and recover the rare elements for re-use).