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One-man manufacturer: Perry Kain assembling his PKL TDLAS gas detectors in Edmonton.
PHOTO: FLAKSTAD

PKL Technologies in Edmonton beats an open-path toward environmental and safety applications with TDLAS.
BY NORDAHL FLAKSTAD KL Technologies Inc. is a modest Edmonton manufacturer, but founder Perry Kain sees opportunities in the air for the Spectra-1 digital gas detector and monitor, the companys main product. The open-path device, employing tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS), is already being deployed for environmental and safety monitoring to detect fugitive emissions and other gas releases. Though he founded PKL in 2005, Kain has only focused full-time on the company since 2010. Thats when he secured space in the Edmonton Research Park (ERP), where the Advance Technology Centre offers technology start-up rms various supports, including space at below market costs. (See Innovation incubator.) Apart from outsourcing some work to a computer programmer, Kain remains a one-man show. Credits would list him as CEO, designer and shop-oor assembler of the sturdy and compact instrument package thats a bit larger than a shoebox. It houses what Kain terms the core of the device namely, a tunable laser diode spectrometer that uses an industrial embedded computer, along with a custom low-noise, laser diode driver circuit. Boutique manufacturing suitably describes PKLs operation. It could be seen as a throwback to days when meticulous watchmakers crafted timepieces one at a time in their workshops. Or maybe PKL is pointing toward a future where one-person manufacturing is feasible. Compare boutique manufacturing to the transformation brought about by personal computers that have allowed many to run home-based businesses. Kain concedes turning out a high-tech product as he does on his own would not have been feasible a few decades ago. Then, almost invariably, manufacturing meant investing in design and machine tools to turn out products. With a sales price of $24,000 or about half that of earlier-generation analogue gas detectors much of the PKL sensors value lies in its software, which can be readily installed by one person in a small production space. Gas detectors have been around for years. In fact, Kain previously worked in Edmonton for a manufacturer of analogue gas analysers. While there, the University of Lethbridge physics grad sensed that, just as digitization had allowed for smaller phones, comparable advances could permit lighter (at 8.5 pounds, about half the weight of its analogue predecessor) gas detectors. More importantly, adapting digital process techniques to absorption spectroscopy using light to determine the chemical composition of a substance by spectral lines emitted by elements allowed for

Fugitive

EMISSIONS
DIGITAL SENSORS FINE-TUNE GAS DETECTION AND MONITORING
renement and updates to the sensor through programming rather than from changing hardware. In an analogue device, you have to make changes to resistors, capacitors and other components something we dont have to do, Kain explains. When youre making changes in a digital device, youre making changes in software, digital lters and the like. You re-program and its done. That makes development a lot easier. ment tool. My design philosophy is to keep it simple, say Kain. With the optical design and when youre dealing with spectroscopy, by minimizing components, the less noise sources you have, the better the instrument performs and less it costs to make. Kain designs and then assembles the devices using off-the-shelf computer, power supply and other components, which are integrated with elements, notably the laser circuits that he solders. If you make 40 or 50 units a year, it would make more sense to outsource the boards, but Im not there yet. If youre doing 20 or less, its more cost-effective to spend the time and do it yourself. Although they could be moved,

historically gas detection devices, were designed to detect and analyze gas levels right at a monitors location. Traditionally sensors sniffed the targeted gases. In contrast, PKLs analyzers see the gas across an open path. A laser beam is tuned to reect off a target up to a kilometre away and then bounces back to the main instrument for analysis. It can detect the presence of the targeted gas over a much wider area than a sitespecic sensor. While Kain believes he has led the way, others are developing similar products, although he suspects there are many engineers and people in industry who have no idea that you can monitor gas over long distances in this way. Existing Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometers assess numerous gases at once. But Kain notes the accuracy of these devices is limited. Furthermore, his gas-specic sensor does not generate false alarms and performs reliably even when unattended. The parts on all PKL TDLAS units are identical except for the laser diodes, the critical gas-specic component, which Kain designs and installs to sense a particular gas (although a single laser diode handles carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide). PKL currently offers sensors for detection of about a dozen gases, including ammonia, methane,

Keeping it simple
Rather than make physical prototypes, as he did for analogue sensors, Kain uses 3D CAD design software SolidWorks a faster and, over time, less-costly develop-

Digitization makes PKLs gas detectors lighter (8.5 lb.) and easy for single-person use.
PHOTO: FLAKSTAD

Innovation incubator
Edmonton Research Park supports tech start-ups

part from two lots still awaiting groundbreaking in the near future, the 87-acre Edmonton Research Park (ERP) is now fully developed. However, an additional parcel of land (between the existing campus and the recently completed Anthony Henday Drive) is earmarked for future expansion. The current campus includes three incubator properties managed by Edmonton Economic Development Corp. (EEDC). The buildings are Research Centre One, the Advance Technology Centre and the Biotechnology Business Development Centre, (the current home of PKL Technologies Inc.). Together they accommodate about 40 start-up rms focusing on IT, clean tech, oil and gas and life science technologies. The buildings incorporate ofce, research/laboratory and production space as well as meeting areas that tenants access to differing degrees depending on where they are on the start-up curve. Through EEDC, the City of Edmonton subsidizes rents at 15% to 20%

below market prices for comparable facilities elsewhere in the city. ERP also serves 14 larger organizations, such as Syncrude Canada and Schlumberger, with R&D activities in dedicated buildings. Candace Brinsmead, EEDC vice-president of innovation and technology advancement, notes ERP provides much more than a roof overhead for start-ups. Our slogan is Were More than Just Space, we are able to offer a lot of other services. Among those she lists are access within the incubator complex to AVAC, a provincial funding agency; the federal NRC-Industrial Research Assistance Program, and the Greater Edmonton Regional Alliance. The latter, with Brinsmead as chair, consolidates a number of agencies that deliver various facets of start-up support. The alliance links start-ups and larger rms with a view to forming alliances that may evolve into lasting business partnerships. www.edmonton.com/edmonton-research-park

8 PLANT WEST

March/April 2012