IOP Business Innovation Award: Keit Industrial Analytics

Keit technology began with an idea that a static optical design was the ideal solution to create an analyser to measure the atmosphere around Mars. Designing an Fourier transform infrared spectrometer that could undergo the rigours of space travel was novel, untried and innovative. The resulting design had to be: low power; low maintenance; compact, vibration tolerant to survive the extremes of a rocket launch; and had to actually work.

Keit Industrial Analytics was launched on the global marketplace as an analytical instrument that could provide process analysis of fluids in industrial settings, such as with biofuel companies wanting to optimise their feedstock pre-treatment processing or to monitor a biofermentation process in real time; and chemical, pulp and paper, and edible oil refining companies needing a new type of instrument sturdy enough to be used right in the production plant for real-time insight rather than waiting for off-line sample analysis. Due to the rugged, portable and low maintenance design of the instrument, the KEIT Spectrometer is now opening up new horizons for when and where spectroscopy can be applied. KEIT spectrometers are now being used globally in such diverse applications as bioethanol and biofuels production, pulp and paper manufacturing, and alumina refining.