Early Detection of Biocontamination by Fast GC/IMS

杀菌剂用于控制有害和不需要的生物体和微生物，并在许多制造过程中使用，以减少产品中生物污染的风险。这可能会对环境产生负面影响，所以在未来，这里将越来越少使用杀菌剂。虽然这对环境来说是个好消息，但制造商发现很难知道他们的产品何时受到生物污染。生产过程中的生物污染会毁掉即将上市的产品，导致产品变质或召回，给制造商造成数百万英镑的损失。该项目将开发一种新的分析系统，用于检测和警告水基工业系统中有害的生物污染。该项目将使用气相色谱- ims技术来研究在项目第一阶段确定的关键指纹生物标志物，作为工业生物污染事件的潜在预警信号。将测试不同类型的混合物，以评估更广泛的工业相关样品。IMSPEX诊断有限公司将进一步开发他们的GC-IMS设备，该设备已经成功地部署在工业环境中。为了使气相色谱- ims取样更加灵敏，还需要进一步的发展。这将使目前的仪器检测极限提高1000倍。IMSPEX将得到南威尔士大学领先的IMS应用开发科学家的帮助。与目前只能在几天而不是几分钟内产生结果的方法相比，创建一个成本效益高、功能强大且易于部署的生物污染检测系统，在30分钟内提供更强大的生物污染警报，将是一个巨大的好处。项目结束后，IMSPEX的目标是将一种工具推向市场，该工具不仅可以帮助显著降低制造环境中发生灾难性生物污染事件的风险，还可以降低杀菌剂的总体使用，提高水基制造过程的可持续性。IMSPEX Diagnostics有机会率先将此类系统推向市场。

Biocides are used to control harmful and unwanted organisms and microorganisms and are used in many manufacturing processes to reduce the risk of bio-contamination in products. This can have a negative effect on the environment and so in the future here will be less and less biocides used. Although good news for the environment, manufacturers are finding it difficult to know when they have bio-contamination in their products. Bio-contamination in manufacturing processes, can ruin product ready for sale, costing manufactures millions of pounds in spoilt product or recalls.This project will develop a new analytical system for detecting and warning of unwanted biocontamination in water-based industrial systems. This project will be carried out using technology called GC-IMS to look at the key fingerprint biomarkers identified in the first stages of the project as potential early warning signals for industrial biocontamination events. Different type of mixtures will be tested to evaluate a wider range of industrially relevant samples.IMSPEX Diagnostics Ltd will further develop their GC-IMS device, which has already been successfully deployed in industrial settings. The developments are needed to make the GC-IMS sampling even more sensitive. This will advance the current instrumental detection limits by a factor of 1000\. IMSPEX will have help from leading IMS application development scientists from the University of South Wales. Creating a cost-effective, robust and easy-to-deploy biocontamination testing system to deliver a more robust alarm for biocontamination in under 30 minutes will be of great benefit, when compared to what is currently available of which can only yield results in days rather than minutes.After the project IMSPEX aims to bring to market a tool that can assist in not only significantly lowering the risk of catastrophic biocontamination events occurring in manufacturing environments but also lower the overall use of biocides, increasing sustainability of water-based manufacturing processes. There is an opportunity for IMSPEX Diagnostics to be first to market with such as system.