Icon Scientific Expands R&D Facility to Meet Industry Demand

Icon Scientific Limited (Icon) has doubled the size of its UK manufacturing centre to meet rapidly increasing demand for its process physical property range of analysers.

Additional square footage at the facility gives larger assembly space and room for storage and shipping, giving Icon greater capacity to fulfil orders promptly. Icon’s managing director, Kevin Fogarty, said: “We have moved our Research & Development department at our headquarters into a new, larger building alongside our production and administration building. This doubles the dedicated space for the continual development of new and existing products, enabling us to meet demand for our forward-looking and advanced products. It will enable us to expand our specialist team accordingly.”

The expansion is the result at continued growth at the company, which launched in 2010 to improve the traditional fuel analysis technologies that have dominated energy production for decades.

Designed for a wide range of refining and midstream fuel production applications, each Icon analyser utilises innovative hardware technologies for superior performance and measurement certainty, while sophisticated processing and reporting software is accessed by a unique, integrated touch screen. Market reaction has already been positive, many of the world’s top refinery operators have adopted and embraced Icon’s technology. Icon has developed specific products for the midstream crude and condensate production, processing, storage and transportation sectors, which have been successful, particularly in the USA and Canada.

With safety as well as product quality and consistency always a priority in every fuel industry, the award-winning and ‘iconic’ analysers take measurements to the next level. Cloud Point and Freeze Point analysers are used to determine safe temperatures for the use of diesel and aviation fuels respectively, while Flash Point measures the lowest temperature for the storage of kerosene or diesel fuel before a flammable vapour mixture forms. Vapour Pressure determines vapour pressure in order to exact the volatility of crude oil, gasoline or liquefied petroleum gas and Colour Opacity ascertains the contamination, purity or clarity of a liquid.

With new analysers launching in 2015, Icon’s new R&D space allows for further expansion of the range and for the development of new products, working in conjunction with its expanding customer portfolio.