ICM, Inc. and Fluid Imaging Technologies Announce Joint Development Agreement for Yeast Viability Measurement Technology
FlowCAM Used to Automatically Characterize Yeast Viability in Fermentation
Replaces Time Consuming Manual Methods for Greater Precision
2008 International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo, Nashville, TN: Fluid Imaging Technologies, Inc. and ICM, Inc. today announced a joint development agreement for a new method for obtaining Yeast Viability measurements during ethanol fermentation. The two companies have jointly developed the new technique for making these important measurements during the ethanol fermentation process. The method uses Fluid Imaging’s FlowCAM® to rapidly acquire digital images of yeast cells and automatically characterize each cell as being live, dead or budding. These yeast cell counts are a primary indicator of the status and health of the ethanol fermentation process. Currently, most yeast cell counts are done manually by viewing the cells under a microscope with a hemocytometer. This old method can only quantify a very small number of cells, and is inherently prone to “operator interpretation”, making the results vary by as much as 25%.
About ICM: ICM, Inc. is home to more than 500 employees who work together to engineer, build, and support the global biofuels industry’s most efficient ethanol plants. ICM is the industry’s leading technology provider; their patented process technology is behind more than 3.8 billion gallons of North America’s annual ethanol production. For more information, visit
icminc.com.
About Fluid Imaging Technologies: Fluid Imaging Technologies manufactures and markets the FlowCAM—a continuous digital imaging particle analyzer. Since the founding of Fluid Imaging Technologies in 1999, the company has expanded beyond its initial oceanographic markets and into industrial applications, and FlowCAMs are now being used in a broad range of industrial, commercial, and research applications around the world.
For more information, contact Lew Brown, Fluid Imaging Technologies, Inc.; 65 Forest Falls Drive, Yarmouth, ME 04096; 207.846.6100.; Fax 207.846.6110;
www.fluidimaging.com;
lew@fluidimaging.com.