Avecia Fine Chemicals at Grangemouth reaps the benefits of having in-house gas supplies for its GC systems, rather than relying on bottled supplies
A variety of generators from In House Gas are helping the speciality chemicals company Avecia streamline its manufacturing processes and improve cycle times.
Ian Brown, fine chemicals analytical operations and development manager, explained: "Avecia has expertise in organic chemistry, biology, polymer science and process technology and we cater to a wide number of industries, including agrochemical, pharmaceutical and healthcare.
"We use gas chromatography (GC) to analyse samples from all stages of the manufacturing process, from raw materials to final product and the GC equipment needs a constant flow of mainly hydrogen gas as a carrier for the columns and to fuel the flame ionisation detector.
"Over the years we have purchased lots of different gas generators from In House Gas, including several stand-alone hydrogen generators and a large nitrogen generator that supplies most of the QC laboratories. "We changed to using gas generators some years ago because of the numerous problems that we experienced using bottles. "The gas would frequently run out during analysis, which was very frustrating, and the extra time incurred repeating everything would cause a delay in production.
"Even worse, sometimes the gas would run out when the GC equipment wasn't in use and air would leak into the expensive capillary columns and slowly damage them.
"By investing in gas generators we have eliminated these problems and made considerable savings in time and money," Brown concluded.
