Biotechtouch activation

Biotechtouch activation
Originally uploaded by Helge V. Keitel

Biotechtouch activation 2012. We've a great team and there is a huge amount of work to be don.

Open innovation and collaboration isn't an easy task in an environment where IPs and non-disclosure agreements are highly valued.

It will take some time for both partners and cliets to understand the value of openess, crowdsourcing and social intelligence.

Anyway, we've all the time in the world to make a change. I've been working for years to get "the channels" working.

Finally, I feel that the understanding of open innovation is growing.

Irja Kallio
Helge V. Keitel

Happy Christmas to all of you

Happy Christmas to all of you
Originally uploaded by Helge V. Keitel

Happy Christmas to all of you from Irja Kallio and Helge V. Keitel.

The picture to the right was taken this morning and shows that we're going to have a White Cristmas in Sotkamo.

I've been busy shopping all day but everything should be ready now.

Year 2012 Biotechtouch will be taken to a new level.

There's a lot to do in this field and KK-Net is going to contribute.

Olkiluoto

Olkiluoto
Originally uploaded by Helge V. Keitel

Olkiluoto is Finland's 5'th nuclear power plant, still under construction.



More information in English.

The parliement has decided that two more plants will be built.

In Sotkamo Finland at Talvivara the mine is going to process uranium.

The amount nearly covers the needs of Finnish nuclear power plants.

New Microbiological Methods for P&P Industry

It seems that new methods for P&P microbiology are needed.

After discussions in PulPaper Congress in Helsinki, June 2010, it is obvious that traditional colony count methods cannot tell the truth about process problems.

These methods, originally developed for clinical microbiology, seem to have too high nutrient content. They cannot, therefore, select the "troublemakers" from the process samples. Bacteria like Gram-negative rods and Bacillus sp. are overestimated in these analyses but eg. filamentous bacteria cannot grow on common, commercial agar media.

Identification of bacteria can be important in some cases. Food poisoning species from the genuses Bacillus, Staphylococcus and Clostridia and hygiene indicators like coliforms, E.coli and Enterococci should be found in raw material control in the production of high hygiene products (LPB, other food-grade cartonboards and papers as well as tissue-type products). If not covered by other bacteria, they can be found with CC analyses. PCR also gives a good way to distinct them among other bacteria.

These methods cannot reveal some severe problems, however. Biofilm formation and comparative biocide testing are two types of investigations which cannot be performed with agar cultivations or molecular biology methods. They should be done either in machine trials or simulations. PMEU methods seem to be the best alternatives for rapid evaluation of biofilm formation and biocide testing today because they exclude all artefacts, caused by artificial growth medium (in colony counts) or too high selection of microorganisms (in PCR). CC's and PCR can be adopted to certain tests but when the subject of the study is to see, what happens in the real paper processes, simulation methods like PMEU shall be chosen.

PMEU toxicity test methods for environmental and industrial microbe control

PMEU Spectrion ® can be applied as a rapid tool for two types of biocide testing.


GROWTH PREVENTION TEST shows the ability of the biocides to prevent microbial growth in processes. Short detection times (typically under 10 hours) indicate poor or lacking effect of the active compound. Long detection times (over 10 hours) show that the biocide can prevent the microbial growth in the target.

This test can be performed in aerobic, microaerophilic or anaerobic conditions.

Temperature control of PMEU unit allows testing of psycrophilic, mesophilic and thermophilic microorganisms.

Turbidity of the test syringes, caused by microbial growth, will be documented automatically and growth curves will be drawn for every syringe. Detection time
(= the moment of the test, counted from the beginning, when the turbidity has increased by a certain factor) can be seen from these growth curves.

PMEU KILL TEST bases on the biocide-dependent change of microbial count. ATP Assay is the fastest method to detect the quantitative increase and the decrease of microbial cells in the samples and is therefore chosen to assist PMEU biocide testing in cases where both the growth prevention and the death of microbes shall be evaluated.

Results of these two types of biocide tests have a significant correlation.

GROWTH PREVENTION TEST can visualize some microbial processes which cannot be detected with traditional colony count method, eg. it shows the prevention of spore germination to vegetative cells by an effective biocide.

All PMEU Spectrion® methods have one excellent property: they indicate the effects of biocides in the original samples, and recovering effect of colony count methods are totally excluded. The user can focus the attention to the biocidic effects which really take place in the paper machine processes.

Modifications of PMEU biocide testing for biofilm control are also available.

New biotechtouch ideas

The biotechtouch team was re-started as an attempt to spend more time on environmental issues and less in the office shuffling papers.

We're looking into mining, chemical effluents, toxic residuals, dust and other environmental effects.

Sotkamo and Kainuu provides a good and practical starting point.

We've new mining operations and new starts waiting around the corner.