On 3 October 2024, staff from the Lower Silesian Branch of the Polish Geological Institute – National Research Institute visited the headquarters of the Tescan Group company in Brno.

The meeting was attended by members of the team of the Petrophysical Laboratory at the Centre for Modelling of Geological Processes, consisting of Agnieszka Oniszczuk, MSc, Piotr Słomski, PhD, and Łukasz Jasiński, PhD. On the part of the Tescan Group, the meeting was attended by Eligiusz Gugala, Marek Dosbaba, Enrica Bonato and Lucia Savastano, as well as Michał Hüpsch from Uni Export Polska (Polish importer of Tescan equipment).

The visit took place in the framework of the recently initiated cooperation between PGI-NRI and Tescan Group. Under the signed cooperation agreement, Tescan will perform analyses for PGI-NRI of a dozen samples collected and prepared in the framework of the PSG theme ‘Geothermal Atlas of the Sudetenland and its Foreland’.

The analyses are carried out using the Tescan TIMA (Tescan Integrated Mineralogical Analysis) equipment, which is a combination of the Tescan MIRA HR Analytical SEM and an extensive configuration of EDS spectrometers, together with special software, which allows not only microscopic images but also mineral composition maps to be obtained.

Tescan will provide PGI-NRI with BSE (backscattered electrons) microscopic images and mineral composition maps (based on BSE images and chemical composition measurements by EDS spectroscopy). The provided results of mineral composition will allow PGI-NRI staff to model thermal conductivity based on various models taking into account the geometry and structural features of the samples. It will also be possible to calculate other thermal parameters of the studied rocks, such as heat capacity, specific heat and thermal transmittance.

What is particularly important, these results will be confronted with the measurements of the mentioned thermal parameters for exactly the same samples carried out at the Petrophysical Laboratory of the Lower Silesian Branch of PGI using the FOX-50 apparatus. This will allow for a detailed comparison of the different research techniques.

During the meeting, the first test results for the samples already provided were discussed, experiences were exchanged on the application of the method for automatic mineral composition analysis in petrophysics and geothermal, as well as the strategy and course of further cooperation and measurements were agreed.

Eligiusz Gugała from Tescan Group together with employees of the Lower Silesian Branch of PGI-PIB: dr. Piotr Słomski, M.Sc. Eng. Agnieszka Oniszczuk and Dr. engineer Łukasz Jasiński after the presentation of the Tescac TIMA microscope (photo by Michał Hüpsch)

Texst: Piotr Słomski