GIT - Press Room

Press Room

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 29, 2000

SEED MONEY

By ANDREA ESTRADA NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT

Amid the wineries and horse ranches of the SantaYnez Valley, Pacific Advanced Technology is finding ways to capture leaking natural gas. In a small office near Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, CardioMend is developing anew way to fix broken hearts. And in a laboratory in Goleta, Indigo Systems is designing and building a tiny infrared camera.

They are three of 34 California companies that have received state matching grants totaling $642,000 to help bring innovative technology to market.

The grants were made through the California Technology Investment Partnership (CalTIP), a program of the governor's Trade and Commerce Agency. All grants receive matching funds from federal agencies such as NASA, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Commerce's Advanced Technology Program. The money is intended to help California high-tech companies develop a wide range of new products and technologies.

"Advancing technology-driven products to an expanding global market will continue to be the driving force behind California's new economy," said Gov. Gray Davis. "These grants are a vital step in sustaining higher-wage jobs for Californians."

Pacific Advanced Technology, for example, is developing a gas-leak- detection camera to help save some of the $600 million in natural gas lost into the atmosphere every year.

A natural-gas processing plant can have as many as 5,000 components, and procedures for detecting leaks in valves and fittings in the country's thousands of facilities are both time-consuming and labor-intensive. Pacific Advanced Technology's gas-leak-detection camera is designed to address that problem.

"Right now people run around with a bucket of soapy water and dab it on (valves and fittings)," said Bob Hinnrichs, vice president of Pacific Advanced Technology. "When they see bubbles, they use a thing that is, essentially, a sniffer, and if it's a big leak they fix it." The Environmental Protection Agency requires the procedure four times a year.

"We're using an imaging spectrometer to develop a portable, hand-held camera so an operator can go around and find the leaks and fix them quickly," Hinnrichs said.

Brad Hinnrichs of Pacific Advanced Technology uses one of the company's imaging systems to check for gas leaks at an oil Refinery. The technology was developed for the U.S. military.

The spectrometer designed and produced by Pacific Advanced Technology enables the user to identify a particular gas by determining the components of the infrared color spectrum the gas emits or absorbs. The technology was first developed for use by the Air Force and Navy.

"Everything that burns, and most gases, emit or absorb a particular color," said Hinnrichs. "A candle burns yellow; gas on your stove burns blue."

The new camera is part of a two-year partnership program with Louisiana State University that began last June. Hinnrichs says the company hopes to have a camera ready for EPA certification at the end of next year.

For More Information Contact:

Pacific Advanced Technology
85 Industrial Way, Buellton, CA 93427 USA
Tel: 805 688-2088
FAX: 805 686-2723
Email: info@patinc.com

The Sherlock can easily be transported and used just about anywhere.

Click on any image to the left to see more in depth information.

The Sherlock can be mounted anywhere for a steady shot every time!

Click on any image to the left to see more in depth information.

The Sherlock can be used up close to your target or from a distance so you have complete flexibility to exactly the angle you need to detect any chemicals that may be present at your target facility.

Click on any image to the left to see more in depth information.

The Sherlock can be used for a wide variety of applications, including detecting biological weapons, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and many other applications in support of homeland security efforts.

The LWIR version will be released in Sept., 2004.

This is what you see when you look through the Sherlock at a gas leak. Those gases are invisible to the naked eye, but they are very harmful to people. However, as you can see, they are very easy for the Sherlock to see, which means you can fix chemical leaks very quickly at your facilities before they turn into major life-threatening disasters.