The global chemical industry has seen a surge in the deployment of latest instrumentation in conventional and state-of-the-art processes. Leveraging digitalization has become a vital need of the industry to improve operational efficiency and reduce personnel errors. The current trend of sophisticated software and uncomplicated interface with portable instrumentation has revolutionized the integration of analytical techniques in laboratories and chemical plants.
Several industries including the chemicals, life sciences, petroleum, and so on are major consumers of instrumentation in the B2B segment.
To understand the advances in Analytical Instrumentation and its deployment in the industry since its advent, Chemical Industry Digest had an email interaction with Upendra Dixit- Managing Director of AJ Instruments India Pvt. Ltd.
His views are published here.
Chemical Industry Digest (CID) Q.1- What are some of the phenomenal advances in Analytical instrumentation (AI) over the last decade that have impacted conventional techniques like chromatography, spectroscopy, etc. to entirely new path-breaking technologies including miniaturization of hardware and the benefits? And what additional benefits do these advances offer to user industries?
Upendra Dixit (UD): Miniaturization is perhaps the most notable current trend in analytical chemistry. Rapid developments in instrumentation have led to an impressive range of benchtop technology and portable devices. The range of portable analytical instruments includes spectroscopic analysis, and elemental analysis are expected to experience the highest growth in a wide range of applications requiring high precision, including drug testing, environmental testing and the analysis of food and beverages.
Associated developments to miniaturization are the combination with internet enabling technologies for online analysis of process parameters. Online techniques provide benefits of continuous process control and provides benefits of speed and cost to process analytical chemistry.
The next advancement is the improvements in analytical technology, which are high-throughput methods for faster and efficient analysis. Development of Fourier Transform methods in both nuclear magnetic resonance and infrared spectroscopy, and hyphenated techniques such as mass spectrometry (MS) are good examples. These developments have provided the user with more powerful techniques to investigate the nature and behavior of compounds.
The advances now focus on the sustainable aspects of the field towards green analytical instrumentation. The focus is on the minimized consumption of hazardous substances and maximized safety for operators and the environment.
CID Q.2- How are user industries responding to incorporating the latest techniques? What about the human resource dimension in terms of skilled people to operate such latest equipment and also for the people to understand the new techniques? What about the training required to skill such people? What would you like to suggest or advise user industries for the satisfactory deployment of AI?
UD: Latest industry solutions/techniques increase efficiency in industrial laboratories and benefit many labs in the food, agricultural, oil refinery, chemical, and environmental industries.
As we know generic skills are very important, but in addition to these skills with chemical instrumentation and analytical techniques are also vital for people to understand the new techniques. For this, students need to have access to new analytical instruments at University level and should work or Intern in R&D or QC Lab in any industry.
Industries need to understand the benefits of latest techniques to increase the quality and speed of production. Analysis time has been reduced from several hours or days to even minutes.
Improvement in accuracy of results by elimination of errors introduced due to personal bias.
Improvement in sensitivity leading to trace analysis at ppt or even femto- mole levels. Such sensitivities could not be imagined using the conventional classical approach.
Fast decisions in case of online analysis during manufacturing operations or deciding on viability before taking commercial decisions.
CID Q.3- With the repertoire of a suite of AI techniques available is it possible to specify which technique is best for which function? Like say, which one for impurity profiling, or elemental analysis or for separation of complex natural substances, etc. how does one select the appropriate AI technique?
UD: The selection of appropriate Analytical Instrument Technique is based on the interest of compound or element and concentration of the analyte. The spectroscopy, chromatography and IR detection techniques are highly suitable to estimate impurity profiles with more reliability. While choosing a method, consideration is given to some or all the following design criteria like accuracy, sensitivity, selectivity, precision, robustness, scale of operation, analysis time and cost. Each of these criteria is considered in detail while selecting the technique.
CID Q.4- With more functional areas and applications coming under the realm of AI, very broadly how can we classify the AI techniques application-wise such as for analysis, separations, material characterization…what else? And in what all industry areas does AI play a very crucial role; is it in R&D, in QC, in Environment and Safety, etc? And in which industry is it widely employed, is it in Life Sciences, Drugs & Pharma, where else?
UD: AI techniques could be broadly classified into 3 categories – sample preparation, element and chemical separation, analysis and measurement.
The high performance analysis instruments are used whenever precision and reliability are required. Whether it is water analysis, environmental monitoring, health care, or quality control, analytical devices guarantee that strict standards have been maintained. AI techniques or solutions are selected as per the individual needs of our customers and their fields of application.
The functional area and applications of the analytical instruments technique have a wide and extensive coverage area of many industries. AI plays vital role in industries such as Research & Development, Government & Regulatory, Pharma & Healthcare, Food/Agriculture/Soil Science, Oil/Gas/Petrochemical, Materials & Chemicals, Environment & Pollution, Metals/Minerals/Geology/Mining, and Private Test Labs.
CID Q.5- What major product areas/ techniques are offered by AJ? What are your major areas of expertise? What is unique about you over the competition (USP)? Do you manufacture your entire product profile locally or are you also importing? Which industries do you serve majorly? What is your association with your parent company AnalytikJena AG? What is the support they provide you?
UD: Analytik Jena India is a leading provider of high-end analytical measuring technology of spectroscopy and sum parameters instruments and products in the fields of biotechnology and molecular diagnostics, as well as of high quality liquid handling and automation technologies. Our portfolio includes traditional analytical technology, particularly to measure concentrations of elements and molecules, as well as systems for bioanalytical applications in the Life Science area spanning the highly complex analytic cycle of a sample from sample preparation to detection.
All our analytical instruments are manufactured at Germany. Our instruments are used in Research & Development, Quality control, life science, drugs and pharmaceutical, Environment and safety, Oil & gas, Metals & Mining, Food & Healthcare, Agriculture, chemicals and purification plants, Cosmetics and personal care and Institutions.
AJ Instruments India Pvt. Ltd is a 100% subsidiary company of AnalytikJena AG. We provide support for analytical method & application development, technical support & training, periodic update on product & technology development, etc. Analytik Jena is part of the Swiss Endress+Hauser Group. Below is the detailed portfolio of Analytik Jena-
ANALYTICAL INSTRUMENTATION
Atomic Absorption Spectrometry- contrAA series, novAA series | Optical Emission Spectroscopy ICP-OES | Mass Spectroscopy ICP-MS | Mercury Analysis | Sample Preparation | UV/Vis Spectrophotometers-Specord PLUS | TOC/TNb | AOX/TOX/EOX | Elemental Analysis C/N/S/Cl | Water Determination by Karl Fischer | Accessories
LIFE SCIENCE
Mixing & Homogenization | Automized Extraction | Spectrophotometer | Liquid Handling | Thermal Cycler & Real-Time Thermal Cycler | Electrophoresis & Blotting | Gel Documentation | Biomolecular Interaction Analysis | General Lab/Laboratory Equipment | Manual Nucleic Acid Isolation | Nucleic Acid Extraction Using a Homogenizer | Automated Nucleic Acid Extraction | PCR | External Control of Extraction | Kits for Molecular Diagnostics | Mobile Diagnostics
Analytik Jena focuses on the following key differentiators against our competitors:
- Industry leading analytical performance to guarantee sanctity of results in QC and breakthrough developments in R&D
- User interface that best optimizes ease of use, cost of ownership and measurement throughput
- Quality and reliability with industry leading warranty standards. For example, Analytik Jena uniquely provides 10 year warranties on optics and other such components.
- Consultative and Expertise focused approach to customer engagement to allow for best solution match to customer applications and environment
Interviewee’s Details:
Upendra Dixit (Managing Director- AJ Instruments India Pvt. Ltd.) is a senior management professional in the instrumentation industry and currently leads the Indian Region subsidiary operations of Analytik Jena AG of Germany. He has 15+ years’ experience of global leadership in industry leading multinational corporations. He has over 25 years of a successful and progressively growing global career in the instrumentation industry ecosystem spanning R&D, applications/systems support, marketing, business development and sales. He is educationally qualified with an MBA in International Business Management/Marketing and undergraduate degrees in physics and electronics engineering from IIT, Kharagpur and Indian Institute of Science respectively.
