Researchers Created a Faster, Less Expensive Method to Quantify Lead in New Paint

The Mercer University research was completed in hopes of providing a more affordable and efficient way for lower- and middle-income countries to protect communities and children from the harmful effects of lead paint.

Back in 2019, while working on a project to curb mercury pollution in Guyana in South America, a research team discovered high levels of lead paint. There was no capacity in many of these countries to analyze and quantify lead in paint, and so no one knew that it was in new paint.

The newly developed method utilizes a relatively inexpensive device called a portable X-ray fluorescence analyzer, or pXRF, to offer fast and more economically viable measurements of lead in new paint.

Mercer researchers develop faster, cheaper method to identify lead in paint