Fluid Imaging Technologies and ICM have announced a joint development agreement for a new method for obtaining yeast viability measurements during ethanol fermentation
The two companies have jointly developed the new technique for making these important measurements during the ethanol fermentation process.
The method uses Fluid Imaging's Flowcam to rapidly acquire digital images of yeast cells and automatically characterise each cell as being live, dead or budding.
These yeast cell counts are a primary indicator of the status and health of the ethanol fermentation process.
Currently, most yeast cell counts are done manually by viewing the cells under a microscope with a hemocytometer.
This old method can only quantify a very small number of cells, and is inherently prone to operator interpretation, making the results vary by as much as 25%.
This new method eliminates the time- and labour-intensive microscopy process along with its potential for human error in favor of a fast and easy approach that captures far more data that is significantly more accurate without requiring highly trained operators.
With this reliable data, operators and laboratory technicians can more accurately determine the optimal process conditions required to insure product quality and optimise efficiency.
