BRAVE: Detecting, identifying and continuous monitoring of contamination in industrial processes and research

BRAVE Analytics recently held a webinar on the subject of “Detecting contamination and visible particles in liquids in the nano- and microparticle regime” and interest was great.

Whether in the production of semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics or biotech formulations, it is important to detect contamination and large particles to safeguard product quality. The appearance of unexpected and unwanted large particles might ruin a whole batch or production run, wasting time and resources and causing financial losses.

The BRAVE technologies discover large particles in real time so it is possible to respond in good time to adjust the product specification. As the devices can run continuously this enables in-flow, large-volume scans with single-particle sensitivity, so even low concentrations of contaminants are found. The webinar focused on detecting and identifying contamination using particle sizing sensors.

This is one frame image from a full video of a measurement taken by BRAVE B-Phat large particle detector. The image shows how each passing (large) particle is detected and given an ID tag. The software simultaneously evaluates the size of each detected particle and creates continuously updated histograms in a size range from 2 mµ to 80 µm.

The various BRAVE modules detect contaminations in a size range from 5 nm to 80 µm, both in the lab and directly online in production. Applications include:

• detecting filter breakthrough
• making sure particle size distribution is within the required limits
• evaluating particle limits acc. to USP <729>, <788>, <787> and PFAT5
• monitoring wet production of wafers for semiconductors
• assessing the presence of aggregates as soon as they begin to form, also large aggregates, anomalies and unwanted large particles

Adding an additional in-flow Raman analyzer identifies the contaminants to allow troubleshooting to discover the source of the problem, for example:

• keeping a watchful eye on filter systems
• constantly monitoring plant health for predictive and proactive maintenance purposes
• ensuring the end product is high quality, high purity and there are no „surprises“ during batch quality checks

Three more webinars are planned for this year. Stay informed by subscribing to the BRAVE newsletter or keep an eye out for announcements on the LinkedIn channel.