Imagine having your own personal laser diffraction expert to guide you through everyday data-quality challenges – someone to spot issues as they emerge, provide independent assessments of what’s wrong, and make suggestions on how to resolve them. Well, you can have all this and more with Data Quality Guidance, a software module that comes as standard with the Pro and Ultra models of the Mastersizer 3000+, and which helps you to work independently and with confidence.
Imagine having your own personal laser diffraction expert to guide you through everyday data-quality challenges – someone to spot issues as they emerge, provide independent assessments of what’s wrong, and make suggestions on how to resolve them. Well, you can have all this and more with Data Quality Guidance, a software module that comes as standard with the Pro and Ultra models of the Mastersizer 3000+, and which helps you to work independently and with confidence.
Laser diffraction is a powerful and highly popular technology for determining particle size. But from time to time, whatever instrument you’re using, you’ll come up against the issue of the data-quality not quite meeting the desired standard.
For example, you might be seeing poor reproducibility, a poor data fit, or an unstable background. The problem is that these and other problems can have various causes, from unexpected sample agglomeration to contamination of your sample.
Unless you’re highly familiar in the technique, it’s likely that you’ll end up wasting time trying to locate the source of the problem, or pausing your work to find a colleague for a second opinion (who, it usually seems, are either in a meeting or on lunch break!). Or, more likely, you may not even realize that something’s wrong until it’s too late.
You’re always welcome to drop our technical team a line, of course. But for routine issues, you’ll likely want to get quick answers without external help – and that’s where our new Data Quality Guidance feature comes in.
Already available with Malvern Panalytical’s Mastersizer 3000, and now with the new Mastersizer 3000+, Data Quality Guidance provides immediate feedback on all aspects of the measurement workflow – from running the background to assessing dataset variability. As a result, you can now spend less time spotting and troubleshooting issues yourself, and more time confidently working with accurate, reliable data.
Since its launch in 2012, the Mastersizer 3000 laser diffraction system has gained a well-deserved reputation as a high-performing, versatile and compact instrument for obtaining particle size distributions.
With applications including assessing powder flowability and packing, understanding drug dissolution rates, monitoring food emulsion stability, and ensuring optical performance of paints, Mastersizer 3000 has become a valuable tool throughout R&D and manufacturing. This success is down to both the hardware and the software: over the years, as well as numerous features and accessories, we’ve released two software modules that benefit all Malvern instruments – Smart Manager for optimizing uptime and usage, and OmniTrust for ensuring regulatory compliance and data integrity.
The Mastersizer 3000+, launched in March 2024, continues this tradition, with three added software features to enhance your particle-sizing capabilities and inform your critical decision-making:
Add to these features the instrument’s flexibility and ease of use, and the Mastersizer 3000+ truly becomes the top choice for particle sizing.
Click on the links above for more information on each of these features, or contact us to enquire about the Mastersizer 3000+.
Data Quality Guidance sits within a separate panel within the Measurement Manager window, and constantly runs throughout the processes of background acquisition, sample measurement and dataset variability analysis.
At each stage, information on the analytical parameters, scattering data and results is combined and assessed, in real-time. A combination of machine learning and deep learning models, as well as specified threshold triggers, are then used to identify issues, determine the probable causes (ranked from most to least likely), and list the recommended actions (Figure 1).
Figure 1: A typical measurement window, showing the Data Quality Guidance panel on the right-hand side, accessed through the Data Quality tab ❶. Potential issues ❷, causes ❸ and actions ❹ are flagged and grouped according to whether they relate to the background, the sample, or the dataset variability analysis. A tab at the bottom of the window ❺ links directly to the help pages on the Malvern Panalytical website.
So what things does the software look out for? Here’s a non-exhaustive list:
Importantly, Data Quality Guidance spots issues and provides feedback immediately. So you can view messages while the data is still being acquired, allowing you to take action as soon as a potential issue is spotted. At the end of the analysis, a summary for each measurement is also contained in an easy-to-interpret report, which is saved so you can view it when needed (Figure 2).
Figure 2: A typical post-run data quality assessment for three samples, obtained through the Report tab. As shown, data quality results for the sample and background are assessed separately, and can be filtered by pass/fail, avoiding the need to review records one by one.
Data Quality Guidance also complements the Size Sure software feature available on the Mastersizer 3000+. This spots and reports separately on ‘transient’ signals, stopping your analytical schedule being derailed by rogue coarse particles, bubbles or other unexpected artefacts.
Data Quality Guidance offers benefits to everyone using laser diffraction – whether you’re in academia or industry, in research or quality control, experienced or just starting out with laser diffraction.
By reviewing the data and offering advice throughout the measurement cycle, Data Quality Guidance is rather like having your own laser diffraction expert, ready to:
Would you like to learn more about Data Quality Guidance? Give us a call today, or watch our webinar about Data Quality Guidance.