Chlorine detection system could be life-saver
Dunedin-based Photonic Innovations has acquired complementary gas detection technology that makes workplaces such as meat processing companies and cool stores safer.
The technology was acquired from Auckland company Southern Photonics.
Both companies use lasers for detecting gases instead of chemical sensors, which were part of the safety problem at the Pike River mine.
Photonic Innovation chief executive Dr Ojas Mahapatra said lasers were more reliable and cheaper to operate.
Chemical-based sensors required more maintenance and often gave false readings.
The technology Photonic has acquired is suitable for detecting hazardous gases across large open spaces. It complements Photonic’s own gas detection product, designed to work in confined spaces such as plant rooms.
The products are suitable for premises such as cool-store and food-processing facilities which use potentially deadly ammonia as a refrigerant. More than 100 people are seriously injured and more than a dozen killed around the world by ammonia gas leaks each year.
A major ammonia gas leak occurred in Bluff last year and there was another in Mt Maunganui a few weeks ago.
A leak at a UK brewery late last year killed one person and hospitalised 22 others.
Southern Photonics and Photonic Innovations are partners with the Dodd-walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies, a Government-funded Centre of Research Excellence.
The companies have collaborated with researchers at the University of Otago and the University of Auckland for the past decade. The acquisition is one of several milestones for Photonic recently, Dr Mahapatra said. Others included raising new capital for growth this year.
The company will soon launch other laser sensors to detect gases such as methane and hydrogen sulphide.