San Bruno, CA – Entanglement Technologies, a global leader in ambient air monitoring technology to detect hazardous chemicals, is expanding their product offerings into the wastewater and process control industries. With support from industry partners, the AROMA technology platform is continuing to reshape the sensing market.
“We are excited to announce the expansion of Entanglement Technologies into two critical areas,” says Tony Miller, CEO of Entanglement Technologies. “Wastewater monitoring and process control both require the detection of trace constituents in complex matrices, which is where our AROMA technology shines.”
Potable water reuse is a critical component of water supplies due to growing population and water scarcity. Direct potable reuse, requires effective treatment and stringent monitoring to mitigate exposure to chemical and biological constituents of concern. AROMA has already been used effectively to monitor drinking water, runoff, and oilfield produced fluid.
A new grant will help further expand the technology’s use in potable water reuse applications. Entanglement Technologies joins principal investigator Southern Nevada Water Authority, as well as Hach Company, Colorado School of Mines and Orange County Water District, as recipients of a grant from the Water Research Foundation to implement AROMA as a real-time analyzer to detect specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at low detection limits (ppb/ppt) prior to and after reverse-osmosis (RO) wastewater treatment. “Real-time detection of speciated VOCs is currently a major gap in wastewater monitoring, as studies have shown that small molecules can pass through RO membranes,” Miller says. “AROMA technology can fill that gap, helping to ensure safe drinking water systems.”
Entanglement Technologies is also delivering critical capabilities to major industries where stringent process monitoring and control is needed. These include the semiconductor and biopharmaceutical industries, where AROMA provides accurate measurement of trace contaminants or constituents to ensure product purity, reliability, and safety.
In the semiconductor industry, purity of specialty gasses and detection of process contaminants are critical to ensuring final product quality. Bioprocess has been a major focus of the pharmaceutical industry with the growth of biopharmaceutical drugs and novel therapies. “AROMA can identify quality control problems early,” Miller says, “saving time and money in manufacturing while providing safe, high-quality products.” A formal product launch is scheduled for 2023.
About Entanglement Technologies
Entanglement Technologies develops the world’s most advanced chemical sensors, bringing real-time analysis out of the laboratory and into the field. Entanglement Technologies’ AROMA technology is designed to meet the rising market needs in wastewater and process control monitoring. Using thermal desorption, cavity ring-down spectroscopy (TD-CRDS), the AROMA platform provides laboratory quality data with the stability, functionality, and ease-of-use of CRDS systems. We design instrumentation that reduces current limitations in the analytical instrumentation industry (frequent recalibrations, instrument downtime, operation requiring Ph.D. personnel and low automation capabilities) while improving the sensitivity, mobility, reproducibility, and throughput over traditional techniques. AROMA provides the data and insights required to make informed, accurate decisions when and where they are needed most. Contact us.
San Bruno, CA – June, 9th 2021 – Entanglement Technologies announces the release of its newest product: AROMA-ETO. AROMA-ETO is delivering in-field ethylene oxide (EtO) detection limits in the low part-per-trillion range. This capability enables rapid surveys and assessments that are required by policy-makers and industrial operators to make time-sensitive decisions to reduce EtO-related health risks, including stopping leaks and releases before they can cause harm or non-compliance.
“Recent epidemiological and toxicological studies have shown that EtO is a more potent carcinogen than previously documented,” says Tony Miller, founder of Entanglement Technologies. “To address the growing concern around EtO, we are pleased to add AROMA-ETO to our fleet of cutting-edge instrumentation to bring critical data and insights to manufacturers, policy makers, and communities.”
EtO is an important part of the sterilization process that manufacturers use to keep medical devices safe. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently updated the inhalation unit risk estimate for EtO, showing that it is about 30 times more potent to adults than previously thought. Modeling results from the 2014 National Air Toxics Assessment indicate an increased potential cancer risk from long-term inhalation exposure to EtO for several census tracts across the US, making the chemical a regional driver of cancer risk (U.S. EPA 2018).
AROMA-ETO is the latest in a suite of instruments developed by Entanglement Technologies using thermal desorption cavity ringdown spectroscopy. The AROMA platform provides GC-MS quality data acquisition with the stability, functionality, and ease-of-use of CRDS systems. The platform is used in the field and lab by customers such as the City of Houston, University of Kentucky, GSI, EPA regional labs, and many more.
AROMA-ETO enables in-field, mobile, and long-term unattended monitoring initiatives by both technical and non-technical personnel. The analyzer facilitates the acquisition of high-quality, actionable data while greatly reducing or eliminating personnel requirements, maintenance, consumables costs, unplanned instrument downtime, and infrastructure build outs. The instrument can be mounted into any vehicle to create a mobile air quality monitoring unit in as little as 30 minutes, with no buildout required.
“AROMA-ETO is currently the most sensitive solution on the market for measuring EtO,” Miller says.The dual modes of operation, RapidScan and LabScan, allow for both small molecule positive identification and large molecule classification in seconds, while also providing parts-per-trillion speciated chemical analysis in minutes for volatile and semi-volatile compounds. In these operating modes, AROMA-ETO can make real-time measurements (every 5 seconds) of ethylene oxide at 1 ppbv and near real-time measurements (every 15 minutes) of ethylene oxide at less than 10 pptv.
When AROMA-ETO is deployed in a mobile platform, it can quickly assess the concentrations of EtO within facilities and communities so that any leaks and emissions can be quickly identified and fixed. It aids in rapid response after a release event, ensuring that appropriate actions can be taken quickly and providing high accuracy evaluations of actual concentrations on the ground. This data can allow for evacuation decisions or to show that a community is safe.
Onsite, the high stability and automation capabilities of AROMA-ETO facilitate sitewide employee health and safety monitoring, scrubber efficiency, stack emissions, area fugitive emissions, and fenceline monitoring with a high degree of accuracy, repeatability, and precision. AROMA-ETO combines real-time analysis with the multiple-line-of-evidence, positive compound identification required to make informed, accurate decisions when and where they must be made.
Entanglement Technologies develops the world’s most advanced chemical sensors, bringing real-time analysis out of the laboratory and into the field. We make the invisible world of chemicals accessible and actionable with rapid and precise sensing technology. Our goal is to design instrumentation that reduces the current limitations in the analytical instrumentation industry (frequent recalibrations, instrument downtime, operation requiring Ph.D. personnel and low automation capabilities) while improving the sensitivity, mobility, reproducibility, and throughput over traditional techniques. The result is a family of products that provides lab-quality data with functionality and flexibility for deployments and improved project planning. Contact us.
(HOUSTON – March 24, 2019) Environmental Defense Fund’s contractor on Saturday detected high levels of the carcinogen benzene near a fire-damaged chemical storage complex in the Houston suburb of Deer Park, indicating the potential exposure to the pollutant spanned several days.
Preliminary air sampling by Entanglement Technologies showed concentrations of up to 495 parts per billion of benzene at about 4 p.m. on Peninsula Street, across the Houston Ship Channel from the Intercontinental Terminals Co. (ITC) facility, where crews were working to empty damaged tanks that officials said contain compounds including gasoline blends and pyrolysis gasoline.
The findings came a day after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found benzene concentrations of 1,000 parts per billion at the same location. That is five times higher than the state of Texas’ threshold for short-term exposure.
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has alerted local officials of the measurements, and the city of Houston has confirmed that these data are the highest quality available on air toxics from the ITC fires. Entanglement Technologies will continue monitoring over the next few days.
“Given the potential of exposure to high concentrations of benzene over multiple days, we are very concerned about the health and safety of residents living in the nearby communities,” said Elena Craft, senior director for climate and health at EDF. “We urge everyone to be vigilant. Risk remains until these chemicals are fully contained.”
EDF’s air sampling data are available on the Kinder Institute for Urban Research’s Urban Data Platform here. Air quality for March 23 and March 24 also are available on EDF’s website.
California-based Entanglement Technologies arrived in the Houston area Friday to take air and water samples for EDF and the Galveston Bay Foundation, using its AROMA-VOC analyzer. Water quality for March 22 and March 23 are available on EDF’s website. The Urban Data Platform also will house the water sampling data. The Urban Data Platform also will house the water sampling data.
Entanglement Technologies designed the analyzer to provide rapid and precise information on public health risks for emergency responders and people living near oil refineries, chemical plants and other potential sources of toxic contamination. The company deployed the instrument inside the city of Houston’s Mobile Atmospheric Laboratory (MAML) to provide real-time data.
“High quality data is critical to respond effectively to emergency situations involving chemical releases,” said Tony Miller, PhD, chief executive officer of Entanglement Technologies. “We have designed our technology to provide decision-makers and stakeholders with actionable data on the spot. Data is the key to determine what harm, if any, has been caused to surrounding communities and the environment.”
Entanglement Technologies uses laboratory-grade analysis to identify individual pollutants, including several volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including cancer-causing benzene. The mobile unit can measure VOCs in both air and water at very low concentrations.
EDF used the same technology in the Houston area following the historic flooding of Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Entanglement’s instrument discovered alarmingly high levels of benzene that neither the EPA nor the likely pollution source had revealed.
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September 7, 2017 – Houston – Over Labor Day weekend, two physicists took a 3-day roadtrip across the country from Silicon Valley. They were not heading to Burning Man; they were driving into the heart of Texas, where Hurricane Harvey had left a trail of devastation just a week prior. They had a singular goal: to use their quantum-physics-inspired chemical sensor to identify neighborhoods that could be in harm’s way from atmospheric leaks at area refineries and chemical plants.
“Water isn’t the only danger; unseen chemical spills and atmospheric emissions also pose a potential threat,” says Tony Miller, CEO of Entanglement Technologies, who is one of the scientists in Houston this week monitoring the situation. “Our technology rapidly prioritizes health crises due to chemical spills, identifying situations that need to be dealt with right away or ones that can wait until more pressing needs are met, so that resources aren’t diverted unnecessarily.”
Entanglement Technologies is working with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Air Alliance Houston in collaboration with the city of Houston and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 6 to measure atmospheric concentrations of benzene and potentially other harmful chemicals in the area. One neighborhood that has been affected so far is Manchester, which sits adjacent a Valero Energy refinery. Entanglement researchers detected elevated levels of benzene, a carcinogen and component of crude oil and gasoline, on September 4 and 5.
“Air pollution is one of the unseen dangers of Harvey,” says Dr. Elena Craft, senior health scientist at EDF. “The shutdowns and startups of oil refineries and chemical plants and storm-related damage to industrial facilities released significant amounts of hazardous
pollutants into air. It is critically important that people know what is in the air they breathe. Poor air quality puts the most vulnerable among us, like children and seniors, at risk for asthma, heart attacks, strokes and other health problems.”
The Entanglement team is taking measurements via a mobile lab in a van equipped with a new instrument called the AROMA (Autonomous Rugged Optical Multigas Analyzer) chemical analyzer. AROMA provides rapid, definitive analysis of a hazardous chemical to part per trillion concentrations. Although it is highly portable, the results are laboratory grade, and it has been used previously by oil companies, the EPA, the Department of Defense’s ESTCP, and various environmental consultants.
The AROMA analyzer is built on the same ultra-precise sensing platform that powers the LIGO gravitational wave detector. “Our technology uses the same type of optical resonators that detect tiny changes in space-time, along with techniques we developed to detect quantum fluctuations of a single atom, for characterizing chemicals in the environment,” Miller explains. “Our research on the quantum limits of measurement at Caltech and Stanford provided us with the tools to detect complex molecules at extremely low concentrations, data not available through other sources.”
This week, the Entanglement scientists are also using the AROMA analyzer to look for trichloroethylene, a toxic chemical that causes birth defects in very low concentration and is a common contaminant at Superfund sites, including several in Houston. The use of the technology in Houston and the surrounding communities will help authorities take appropriate actions to keep the affected populations safe. Entanglement Technologies is currently developing low-cost AROMA systems to be widely deployed by state and local governments and environmental agencies in the near future.
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Founded in 2010 and based in Burlingame, California, Entanglement Technologies makes the invisible world of chemicals accessible and actionable with rapid, precise chemical sensors.
Funding for developing the technology has come from the Army Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health.
Lisa M.P. Munoz lmunoz@entanglementtech.com
+1 703-307-6141