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Abstract:
Renowned Dutch scientist and diffraction analysis pioneer, Dr. Hugo Rietveld, was in Almelo, The Netherlands, on 11 January 2008 to officially open newly refurbished facilities at PANalytical's innovation and manufacturing center.

Renowned scientist opens new PANalytical offices

Almelo, The Netherlands | Posted on January 14th, 2008

The new parts of the site provide offices for more than 60 of PANalytical's Almelo workforce of 300 people as well as an upgraded assembly area, a new staff restaurant and a series of training suites.

Pieter de Groot, director of marketing and innovation at PANalytical commented: "Dr. Rietveld's groundbreaking work, now known as the Rietveld Method, is of great importance for accurate structure determination and quantification using X-ray diffraction. Rietveld analysis is important for an ever increasing number of our customers across a wide range of market segments."

John Oude Egbrink, General Manager of the Almelo site, added: "The size of our production area was becoming a limiting factor for growth. Renewing this part of the site offers us the opportunity to expand capacity and gives us the springboard to meet customer demand for the coming years."

Guido Eggermont, Commercial Director, PANalytical added:
"Our growth in the five years since PANalytical was incorporated into the Spectris Group in 2002 has exceeded that of the market. For the coming years we have identified new markets, in new areas of the world and in new applications. We confidently expect that this will further strengthen our position as the market leader in analytical X-ray solutions."

PANalytical is the world's leading supplier of analytical instrumentation and software for X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry. The company employs around 900 people in more than 60 countries. Systems are widely used in research and industry, for materials and product development and process control applications in the pharmaceutical, cement, steel, petrochemical and semiconductor sectors, for example.

High resolution images available from Trish Appleton, Kapler Communications quoting reference: PAN/JOB/391

Notes to editors:
About Dr. H. M. Rietveld

•Born on 7 March 1932 in The Hague, the Netherlands.

•Graduated in 1964 as Doctor of Philosophy on the thesis "The Structures of p-diphenylbenzene and other compounds", at the University of WA in Perth, Australia. It entailed the first structure determination of an organic molecule by means of neutron diffraction ever done in Australia.

•On request of the Dutch Reactor Center Nederland (now Energy research centre of the Netherlands) management he returned to the Netherlands to take on activities as scientific researcher in the Solid State Physics group, and specifically in charge of the structure determination of solid state materials by means of neutron diffraction. His work resulted in a number of publications, of which that on a profile refinement method of neutron powder diffraction data appeared to be of great importance. This particular publication has led to a revival in powder diffraction. The refinement method now is generally known as ‘The Rietveld Method'.

•A member of several national and international committees in the field of the provision of technical and scientific information, amongst this the editor board of the reputed Dutch Physics Magazine (Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Natuurkunde).

•Dr. Rietveld has received the following awards:

-The Aminoff Prize of the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1995
-The Barrett Award of the Denver X-ray Conference Organizing Committee in 2003
-De royal honor Officer in the Oranje Nassau Order in 2004

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About PANalytical
PANalytical is the world’s leading supplier of analytical instrumentation and software for X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF), with more than half a century of experience. The materials characterization equipment is used for scientific research and development, for industrial process control applications and for semiconductor metrology.

PANalytical is part of Spectris plc, the precision instrumentation and controls company.

PANalytical, founded in 1948 as part of Philips, employs around 900 people worldwide. Its headquarters are in Almelo, the Netherlands. Fully equipped application laboratories are established in Japan, China, the USA, and the Netherlands. PANalytical’s research activities are based in Almelo (NL) and on the campus of the University of Sussex in Brighton (UK). Competence and supply centers are located on two sites in the Netherlands: Almelo (development and production of X-ray instruments) and Eindhoven (development and production of X-ray tubes). A sales and service network in more than 60 countries ensures unrivalled levels of customer support.

The company is certified in accordance with ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001.

The product portfolio includes a broad range of XRD and XRF systems and software widely used for the analysis and materials characterization of products such as cement, metals and steel, nanomaterials, plastics, polymers and petrochemicals, industrial minerals, glass, catalysts, semiconductors, thin films and advanced materials, pharmaceutical solids, recycled materials and environmental samples.

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Contacts:
Trish Appleton
Kapler Communications
Knowledge Centre, Wyboston Lakes
Wyboston, Bedfordshire MK44 3BY UK
T: +44 (0) 1480 479280
F: +44 (0) 1480 470343

For more press and product information:
PANalytical
Branding and Communications Dept.
T: +31 (0) 546 534444
F: +31 (0) 546 534592