Patent ID: 8497678

Claim:
An apparatus usable for mineral analysis of a sample containing at least one substance with nuclei responsive to a Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance (NQR) and/or Local Field Magnetic Resonance (LFMR) phenomenon, comprising: a probe comprising a tank circuit with a coil system, tuning, and matching means; transmitting means usable to provide and apply powerful radio-frequency (RF) pulses at an output thereof to the tank circuit; receiving means comprising at least one channel for detecting and amplifying signals received in the coil system; processing and determining means usable to process the signals amplified by said receiving means to help distinguish the presence of any NQR or LFMR signals corresponding to a substance being targeted within the sample and determining a concentration of the substance being targeted within the sample; and calibrating means usable to improve determinations of the concentration of the substance being targeted in the sample being analyzed, the calibrating means comprising at least one test sample containing a test substance with nuclei responsive to the Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance (NQR) and/or Local Field Magnetic Resonance (LFMR) in local magnetic field, the concentration of the test substance in the test sample being well known.