Sep 25 2008
Cognis Corporation, through its QTA System business, announced that its biodiesel quality testing system has seen the largest growth in the Company's history.
"Our quality testing system now analyzes over 3000 biodiesel samples per month for biodiesel facilities that produce a combined total of over 750 MM gallons in the U.S., Europe and South America. That's an increase of nearly 50% just this year" said Barbara Stefl, Cognis QTA's Global Business Director. "Our quality testing system is being used to commission some of the largest plants in the world, is replacing expensive-to-operate testing labs in existing plants and is helping existing facilities to improve yields and reduce costs. Overall, our fast and accurate testing system is helping better integrate quality management and control with plant operations by giving operators the ability to test their own fresh, unprepared B100 and to make production changes in less than two minutes."
Dr. Mark Wrigley, Plant Manager at Ecogy Biofuels said "When I used to double check a quality measurement using my gas chromatograph, it would cost me over an hour in production time to get the results back. Now, with QTA, when I get an unexpected measurement, its takes me just one minute to run another test, make process changes and get production started again."
Cognis' QTA patented Biodiesel Analysis starts by digitizing the light spectra of a fresh biodiesel sample using proven infrared technology. Those spectra are then sent, via the internet, to Cognis' central database where algorithms convert the spectra, in real-time, into highly accurate standard quality measurements that are viewed online by plant personnel. All this occurs in less than two minutes.
Cognis' QTA system is offered on a subscription basis and does not require any capital investment. The annual subscription includes an easy-to-use infrared spectrometer, software for a standard PC and unlimited use of Cognis' Chingometric™ centrally-calibrated algorithms that covert the light spectra into actionable quality data.