Industry Primer | Products | Calculations | Test Program Setup | Additional Resources
For a quick introduction of LuminUltra's capabilities in this market, go here.
Background
The chemical products manufacturing industry is understandably diverse. However, many products contain organic material that can serve as a food source to microorganisms. Products such as paints, coatings, latexes, adhesives, and concrete admixtures, are all prone to significant biodegradation issues if microbial growth is not kept in check. The consequences of contaminated product can be severe (e.g. product recalls, lost time due to product re-working requirements, damage to company reputation, etc.).
Additional Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_industry
How can ATP monitoring help?
The biggest benefit of ATP monitoring in chemical products is early detection. Being able to identify contaminated product on-the-spot rather than having to wait 2 or more days for culture test results to be know results in significantly shorter production cycles. Not only can product batches be flagged as contaminated much more quickly, but the effectiveness of corrective action can also be assessed in real-time. Overall, this can reduce production cycles by up to two weeks! This kind of same-shift troubleshooting is simply not possible when using culture-based microbiological analyses.
Moreover, ATP tests detect all living organisms, not just the relatively small percentage that forms colonies in typical growth media. Following initial ATP testing, follow-up tests involving specific culture tests can be done to validate control mechanisms to guard against spoilage!
How types of products can ATP test?
- Adhesives - Adhesives are a type of coating that is intended to bond surfaces together. The bonding process occurs when solvents in the adhesive product evaporate, leaving the bonding material behind to connect the surfaces in contact with it. Adhesives can include products such as epoxies, sealants, and liquid glues.
Additional Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhesives
- Admixtures - Admixtures are ingredients other than water, aggregates, hydraulic cement, and fibers that are added to the concrete batch immediately before or during mixing. A proper use of admixtures offers certain beneficial effects to concrete, including improved quality, acceleration or retardation of setting time, enhanced frost and sulfate resistance, control of strength development, improved workability, and enhanced finishability.
Additional Information: http://www.toolbase.org/Technology-Inventory/Foundations/concrete-admixtures
- Coatings - Coatings cover an extremely wide range of products, but overall, their intent is to protect a surface from damage or degradation due to things like abrasion, corrosion, or moisture. Depending on the application, coating purity can be a huge issue since foreign material such as microbial growth, dirt, or other impurities can significantly impair the properties of the coating product.
Additional Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coating
- Latex - Latex is a name collectively given to a group of similar preparations consisting of stable dispersions of polymer microparticles in a liquid matrix (usually water). Latexes may be natural or synthetic. Synthetic latexes are usually produced by emulsion polymerization using a variety of initiators, surfactants and monomers; the latter commonly include: SBR Latex (Styrene Butadiene Rubber), SBA Latex (Styrene Butadiene Acrylonitrile), NBR Latex (Nitrile Butadiene Rubber), Synthetic Rubber, Vinyl acetate, and Acrylates. Latexes are used in coatings (e.g. latex paint) and glues because they solidify by coalescence of the polymer particles as the water evaporates, and therefore can form films without releasing potentially toxic organic solvents in the environment. Other uses include cement additives.
Additional Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/latex_(polymer)
- Paints - Paints are essentially a specialized coating with pigments incorporated. Pigments are granular products, either natural or synthetic, that provides color to paint products. Common types of paint are: automotive paints, emulsion paints, varnishes, enamels, primers, lacquers, and stains. Aside from aesthetics, paint serves a critical role as a surface protectant. Most metallic surfaces that are exposed to the elements are painted to prevent corrosion.
Additional Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint
Testing Landscape
The main goal for microbiological monitoring in specialty chemicals is to detect microbial growth at the earliest stage so that action can be taken to prevent spoiled product. For this reason, a rapid test such as ATP provides the invaluable ability to assess the quality of raw materials, intermediates, and final products on the spot.
Complimentary Methods
- Microscopic examination – characterizing the population using microscopic means is an excellent addition to ATP analyses since ATP tests cannot reveal the presence of certain spoilage microorganisms.
- Specific Culture Methods – while incubation times can be excessive (3-5 days for fungi). In some cases, a certain level of microbial content is acceptable, but the presence of certain species can cause major problems.
Competitive Methods
- Heterotrophic Plate Counts – Attempts to enumerate the total living population in chemical products using culture-based tests tend to fall short since they only detect 0.1-10% of the total population. In situations where the total population must be kept very low, this underestimation can result in false positives.
