nir-vana innovation network

The SME was founded in 1997 with the current directors taking ownership in 2007. It is a privately owned and funded UK Mass Spectrometry company incorporating development and manufacture both in terms of hardware and software. This company has several inventions of disruptive technology to its name and has helped many organisations in different sectors including - Guinness, Budweiser, Coors, Miller CO2 impurity monitoring (2007) - Taiwan EPA Volatile chemical monitoring (2015) - Johnson Matthey catalyst characterisation (2010- present) - London Olympic site brownfield monitoring of dangerous gases (2010) - TSMC Taiwan process monitoring (2019) - Green Solar Hungary flat panel monitoring (2014) - Ineos automated vinyl chloride monitoring (2016) - Air Products Diving gas monitoring (2020) - Queensland EPA (Australia) Environmental monitoring (2017) - Star Scientific Australia Nuclear Fusion application (2016) In 2011 the SME was asked to develop a new for the product for the environmental monitoring sector. Historically, in this field samples were taken from the customer site and then sent to a laboratory for analysis, not only was this time consuming, but there was also the added problem of sample deterioration. The SME then developed and brought to market a new technology which was a portable instrument that could be taken to customer sites and powered via a 12V car socket. This gave immediate advantages over the previous technique insofar as it produced instant results, meaning that decisive action could be taken immediately. In the case of a pollutive event the process could be shut down and the issue rectified very quickly. Furthermore, significant cost savings were made as the charges of using a subcontract laboratory were eliminated. In 2015 the SME was in discussion with a major Catalyst company who expressed a wish that they wanted to monitor both sides of a catalytic reactor in order to establish its efficiency. Previously the procedure used was to remove an inlet connection from one side of the reactor and move it to the other and perform the analysis again. The SME quickly developed (both hardware and software) a two-inlet system which could be rapidly switched between the two. This had to be a perfectly balanced design otherwise there would be irregularities in the respective gas flows. There were immediate cost savings to the customer. Analysis time was reduced by 50%, enabling the customer to test twice as much product in a single day, bringing greater financial yield benefit to the customer. Freeze drying of Pharmaceuticals is another interesting sector. Traditionally the method of the user establishing whether the Volatile chemicals used to “tabletise” the pharmaceutical slurry was to open the door of the drying vessel and physically check. The opening and closure of the door meant that the process took quite a long time as it caused huge temperature fluctuations. In 2019 the SME was approached by a large pharmaceutical company to see if could help improve this process. By constantly monitoring the decline of the volatile chemicals in the dryer it negated the requirement for opening the door to physically check to see if the product was cured. This reduced the drying time by some 34%, meaning that the customer benefited by being able to produce 34% more product. The SME’s products can be applied to (but not limited to) the following application sectors: • Brewing • Complex Gas Mixtures • Environmental Monitoring • Fermentation • Food Grade Gases • Full Automation Options • Medical Systems • Military Systems een.ec.europa.eu Page 3 • Pure Gas Analysis • Refrigeration Systems • Vacuum Process monitoring • Carbon Capture Many of the SME’s customers are showing significant carbon equivalent (CO2e) savings. Further cost savings are achieved by drastically reducing production time and higher product yield.