Bison chucks and workholding equipment put 1^st MTA in pole position

Bison chucks and workholding systems are the latest additions to 1^st MTA's extensive range of high productivity machining accessories, following the company's appointment as UK agent for all Bison-Bial's products.

Backed by a 60 year manufacturing track record as Poland's leading tooling and machining equipment supplier, the Bison brand includes a wide variety of manual self-centring and power chucks, cylinders, workholding vices, rotary tables, indexing fixtures, spindle tooling and toolholding equipment.

The competitively priced units are manufactured to ISO 9000 quality standards, to ensure rugged and dependable performance over extended production runs. In addition, 1^st MTA will be holding extensive stocks of all popular Bison products in order to offer a same day despatch service on most orders.

"The addition of Bison equipment to 1^st MTA's portfolio underlines our position as the UK's premier one-stop shop for anyone looking to enhance their competitiveness through increased productivity and reduced manufacturing costs," commented 1^st MTA's general manager, Catherine Kelly. "We are delighted to be appointed as Bison-Bial's new UK agent and look forward to establishing a close working relationship with the company over coming months. 

"Bison's products are well known for their quality and value. They complement our existing high productivity chucks, rotary tables and machining vices from Kitagawa, Chick, Abbott, Leave and OK-Vise, giving customers the widest choice of workholding solutions for their application needs."

Refer to pictures on the right: Chuck group (top); Toolholders group (middle); vices group (bottom).

About 1^st Machine Tool Accessories
Offering a comprehensive range of top quality products at competitive prices, 1^st Machine Tool Accessories is a leading supplier of workholding and machining accessories, including collets; chuck jaws; Kitagawa and Bison chucks, rotary tables and vices; Chick workholding equipment; Abbott and Leave fixturing and clamping products; Darex tool sharpeners; OK-Vises; Brighetti reduction bushes; CoolJet high pressure coolant systems; machine mounts; and Overbeck deburring twister lathes.

1st MTA's extensive stock holding is backed by excellent warranty and service provided by a dedicated team of technical engineers. Demonstrations of selected products are available from external sales specialists on request.

For further information, contact Catherine Kelly at 1^st MTA, e-mail: enquiries@1mta.com  Refer to page 41

Small is beautiful for cutting costs and carbon

Groundbreaking micro-CHP (combined heat & power) technology is available for the first time in the UK following a new Anglo-Japanese agreement.

Greater Manchester-based sustainable power business ENER-G Combined Power Limited has entered into a technology partnership with Japanese manufacturer Yanmar that will enable whole new sectors to harness low-carbon technology.

Commenting on the partnership, ENER-G sales manager Anthony Mayall said: "The Micro CHP range expands our capability from 4kWe to 10MWe, which is unique to the market place and means we can extend beyond our previous lower limit of 35kWe and help organisations with smaller buildings with their energy efficiency. This product range means ENER-G comfortably has the broadest product range on the market."

The micro-CHP systems, available in a range of sizes from 4kWe to 25kWe, are more than twice as efficient as conventional power generating technology. A 25kWe unit would typically save up to 66 tonnes of carbon annually - equating to the carbon absorbing benefit of approximately 6,600 trees. (Refer to picture above).

Another major benefit of micro CHP technology is that it can enable users to qualify for the government's new feed-in tariff scheme - also known as the Clean Energy Cash-back Scheme - which pays financial rewards to consumers who generate on-site electricity from sustainable sources.

The micro-CHP market in the UK is almost completely undeveloped and ENER-G's partnership with Yanmar heralds enormous potential for carbon reductions and cost savings across fresh areas of the commercial, industrial and public sectors.

The technology is ideal for modestly-sized buildings that need to use electricity and heat for long periods, such as care homes, smaller medical centres, fast food restaurants, and compact supermarkets.

Micro-CHP technology has been enthusiastically endorsed by the Carbon Trust. Their Micro CHP Accelerator Interim Report includes details of field trials that show typical carbon reductions of 15-20% in small commercial applications. Furthermore it is suggested that a unit with a power to heat ratio like that of the Yanmar IC engine could yield carbon savings of 30%.

CHP is the simultaneous generation of electricity and useful heat. It reduces greenhouse emissions drastically by capturing the heat output that is wasted in conventional power generation. It also avoids transmission losses because the energy is generated locally.

Yanmar micro CHP systems can be located in limited, external spaces - similar to those required by air conditioning units. Their low operating noise reduces disturbance to neighbours and reduces potential planning issues. An extra benefit is 10,000-hour service intervals (approximately two years), which translates into lower running costs. Meanwhile, remote monitoring by ENER-G engineers ensures that systems run at optimum performance to maximise uptime

Anthony Mayall continued: "Yanmar is a world-class manufacturer whose micro-CHP technology is tried and tested, with over 4300 units supplied across the globe. The company  chose ENER-G as its commercial partner because we, too, have a long history in CHP, extensive in-house technical experience, an established service network and our own product range, with over 1,200 CHP units installed to date.

For further information, view website: www.energ.co.uk   

Thermo Fisher Scientific ICP spectrometer selected
by Imperium Renewables to ensure biodiesel quality

Imperium Renewables, one of the largest producers of biodiesel in the United States, has chosen the powerful iCAP 6000 Series ICP emission spectrometer to analyze biodiesel. The Thermo Scientific iCAP 6000 Series helps Imperium Renewables accurately measure the trace element content of biodiesel to ensure it complies with the strict worldwide regulations governing the biodiesel industry.

Biodiesel is an environmentally friendly, clean burning, renewable energy source made from vegetable oils, waste oils or fats derived from crops. It is compatible with today's existing fueling infrastructure and can be used in many conventional diesel engines. Imperium Renewables can produce 100 million gallons of biodiesel per year at nameplate capacity in its flagship facility, Imperium Grays Harbor in Washington. To ensure product quality and compliance with strict government standards, the company rigorously tests its biodiesel for contaminants. Because this commitment to quality is onerous with such high product throughput, the company requires highly reliable analytical instrumentation for its routine analyses.

Like most biodiesel plants, Imperium Renewables operates under stringent ASTM standards. For biodiesel to be sold as a fuel or blending stock, it must meet a set of requirements defined in ASTM D6751 or European Committee for Standardization (CEN) EN14214 standards. These standards specify the maximum allowable element concentrations in pure biodiesel finished product (B100). Until recently, the company outsourced feedstock samples and finished product testing to a third-party, and this was extremely expensive, time-consuming and inefficient. As a result, Imperium Renewables sought to create an in-house solution, focused on ICP technology, that could save time, reduce costs and increase productivity.

Imperium Renewables purchased the iCAP 6000 Series ICP because of Thermo Fisher's proven track record of providing cost-effective instruments and strong customer support. Lack of space also made the compact iCAP 6000 Series an ideal solution. Nathan Shenk-Boright, laboratory manager at Imperium Renewables explains, "We are now using ICP in our in-house laboratory, instead of outsourcing our samples for analysis. This is extremely beneficial to our customers as we can provide fast service and ensure the optimal quality of our biodiesel."

The iCAP 6000 Series is an ideal ICP for high-throughput elemental analysis laboratories seeking exceptional analytical performance in a practical, reliable instrument that saves laboratory space and reduces analysis times. The iCAP 6000 offers Imperium Renewables a faster alternative to their previous time-consuming and costly outsourcing methods. It is now possible for the company to improve productivity and reliability and ensure regulatory compliance by performing extremely accurate analysis of feedstock and biodiesel in-house.

Thermo Scientific is part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science.

Thermo Fisher Scientific in profile
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO) is the world leader in serving science, enabling its customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. With 2008 revenues of $10.5 billion, and approximately 34,000 employees it serve over 350,000 customers within pharmaceutical and biotech companies, hospitals and clinical diagnostic labs, universities, research institutions and government agencies, as well as environmental and industrial process control settings. Serving customers through two premier brands, Thermo Scientific and Fisher Scientific, help solve analytical challenges from routine testing to complex research and discovery. Thermo Scientific offers customers a complete range of high-end analytical instruments as well as laboratory equipment, software, services, consumables and reagents to enable integrated laboratory workflow solutions. Fisher Scientific provides a complete portfolio of laboratory equipment, chemicals, supplies and services used in healthcare, scientific research, safety and education. Together, they offer the most convenient purchasing options to customers and continuously advance their technologies to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery, enhance value for customers and fuel growth for shareholders and employees alike.

For further information on the Thermo Scientific iCAP 6000 Series of ICP emission spectrometers, email: analyze@thermofisher.com