Because of their extremely high sensitivity to Brand Reputation issues - Quality Control & Quality Assurance - Food & Beverage producers can see an enormous benefit from using Aria technology. QC and QA are difficult areas for Food & Beverage producers due to unique limitations with respect to controls on raw materials or in-process operations: a large percentage of the raw materials or finished products are imported, some from third world countries.
Food & Beverage products
tested include:
· Milk and dairy products
· Alcoholic Beverages
(e.g. wine, beer)
· Fruit Juices
· Condiments
· Packaged drinking water and ice
· Flavors and fragrances
Due to its ability to detect even small differences from on e sample to another, the Aria technology is ideally suited to Quality Control and Quality Assurance.
Currently, any number of single analytical methods are used to detect liquid phase components
(both in-process or finished products), measure product purity, or the presence of adulteration or contamination. Aria offers a one-step
inexpensive test to detect adulteration or contamination, thus eliminating need for a combination of measurements from slow, expensive
instruments.
The Aria technology has been tested in Quality Assurance applications in a number of industries:
· Food & Beverage
· Inks
· Healthcare
· Paints & Coatings
Some examples of these applications are:
1 – Cranberry Juice;
2 – “False”
3 – Natural
To Test the Aria Technology,
Juice 2 was formulated to have the same physical appearance and RATIO as natural Orange Juice
Inks are a broad set of colloidal systems of fine pigment particles dispersed in an aqueous or organic solvent. In addition
to the pigment, modern ink formulations contain various amounts of many other ingredients collectively known as “vehicles”. These additional ingredients include pH modifiers, humectants to retard premature drying, polymeric resins to impart binding and allied
properties, antifoaming agents, wetting agents (control surface properties), biocides to inhibit the fungal and bacterial growth that
lead to fouling, and thickeners or rheology modifiers to control ink application).
Measurements of many chemical-physical parameters
of the ink are required to control ink content and quality.
Aria’s single-measurement technologies can easily distinguish off-standard formulations. The test time is equal to the time it takes
for a 2 microliter drop of liquid to dry. The results of such a comparison are represented in digital format.
The figures at
the right show, for example, clear differences between inks formulated in volatile vs. aqueous solutions.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) has reported that “Medical errors are
responsible for injury in as many as 1 out of every 25 hospital patients; an estimated 48,000-98,000 patients die from medical errors
each year. Errors in healthcare have been estimated to cost more than $5 million per year in a large teaching hospital, and preventable
health-care related cost the economy $17-$29 billion per year.”
These errors may result in a patient receiving the wrong medication, a test result being misread, or even a misdiagnosis. A study by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that preventable adverse drug events caused 1 out of 5 injuries or death per year in the hospitals studied. A significant number of the adverse drug events arise is the hospital pharmacy IV room. These errors are among some of the most difficult to detect and are extremely dangerous to the patient.
Aria testing can be used both in-process and for final IV formulations.
A simple, inexpensive test which requires little technical
expertise to perform provides a simple straightforward indication of whether or not the IV solution has been prepared correctly and
is ready for use.