MultiTran - Measurement of the permeability of ultra-high performance barrier layers

高性能屏障层可以防止大气中的氧气和水分，以及二氧化碳和乙烯等其他物质进入或离开它们所保护的材料和设备。用于鉴定这种屏障层的分析仪器是一个复合年增长率（CAGR）为20%的增长市场，预计到2021年将达到1.4亿英镑。市场分为食品和药品等的既定专业包装市场，增长率为5%，新兴塑料电子市场的复合年增长率为50%。为了实现所需的设备寿命达到10年，需要具有1.0 -6 g/m2/天的水蒸气透过率（WVTR）的超高性能屏障层。这样的传输速率比目前商用仪器测量的传输速率低100倍。我们计划展示一种可以测量WVTR到所需水平的仪器，并最终进入新兴塑料电子市场的这一未满足的需求。该技术基于一种创新的新型质谱仪电离源，使用等离子体电离感兴趣的物种，并受到正在申请的专利保护。我们将使用通过国家物理实验室（NPL）获得的校准样品和来自潜在客户的样品来演示仪器的性能。质谱仪同时测量多种物质的独特能力也将允许我们的仪器的单个单元取代目前在整个特殊包装市场上使用的多个单一物质测量仪器。

High performance barrier layers prevent the passage of atmospheric oxygen and moisture,along with other species such as carbon dioxide and ethylene, to/from the materials anddevices they protect. The analytical instrumentation used to qualify such barrier layers is agrowth market with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of >20%and projected to be>£140 million by 2021. The market divides between the established speciality packagingmarket for foods and pharmaceuticals etc. growing at GDP rates +5% and the emergingplastic electronics markets with a CAGR of >50%. To achieve the required device lifetimes of>10 years requires ultra-high performance barrier layers with water vapour transmission rates(WVTR) of 1.0 10-6 g/m2/day. Such transmission rates are 100x below that measureable withcommercially available instrumentation today.We plan to demonstrate an instrument that can measure WVTR to the levels required andultimately tap into this unmet need of the emerging plastic electronics market. The techniqueis based on an innovative new type of mass spectrometer ionisation source using plasma toionise the species of interest and is protected by a pending patent application. We willdemonstrate the performance of the instrument using both calibrated samples obtainedthrough the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and samples from prospective customers.The unique ability of a mass spectrometer to measure multiple species simultaneously willalso allow a single unit of our instrument to replace multiple single species measurementinstruments currently being used throughout the speciality packaging market.