PPO Teaming up with McGill University on Aerosols Instrumentation Project

P&P Optica Announces NSERC Partnership
November 2016 – For over 15 years P&P Optica has been deeply involved in many partnerships and collaborations with academia. These partnerships have been formed to help advance research in various applications where optical spectroscopy and hyperspectral imaging were needed. As a company with roots in research and academia PPO is proud to announce its partnership with Thomas Preston and his research group at McGill University.

The ability to assess the health impact of atmospheric particles (small liquid or solid particles suspended in air) in air quality and characterize those particles is a growing area of research. The goal of this partnership is to advance instrumentation capabilities in atmospheric aerosol characterization. As a company with roots in research and academia, we are looking forward to being able to help take these steps to create an alternative instrument that will benefit atmospheric researchers.

The research project’s objective is to develop an affordable, fast, and compact instrument that can provide both sizing and chemical information. At this point, such an instrument would represent a breakthrough in the field of air quality control and aerosol science. The instrumentation would potentially be available for a fraction of the cost compared to that of an aerosol mass spectrometer, which is prohibitively expensive for many researchers (ranging in price from $350K – 800K). The new system will also be portable and offer the ability to do real-time analysis.

Thomas Preston is an exemplary researcher in the field of atmospheric aerosols, and we are happy to be working in such a complementary collaboration.

About Thomas Preston:

Early on into his Ph.D. Thomas held an NSERC CGS-D scholarship and studied aerosols through a combination of laboratory experiments and modeling. He later continued his work in aerosols with support from an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship. The scope of his work is centered on studying atmospherically relevant aerosol particles, at which time he also worked on the development of a commercial instrument for trapping single aerosol particles.

About P&P Optica:

P&P Optica is a leading innovator in the development of chemical imaging technology. Located in the technology hub of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, the company has developed a transmission-based, high-performance spectroscopy platform which can quickly provide lab-quality results in a small, portable form factor. Our high-performance, gel-grating based spectrometers provide the best cost/performance ratio in the following areas: food processing, industrial sorting, industrial chemical imaging, environmental testing, biochemical analysis and process control. For more information visit our application section.