Isis licenses pH technology to California

Licensing deal

Technology for determining pH, developed at the University of Oxford, has been licensed by Isis Innovation to a company in the Bay Area of San Francisco. The novel solid-state technology was developed for monitoring pH in oil wells, but the California company, Phathom Nanosensors Inc, will develop it for other industries.

The sensor was developed by Professor Richard Compton at Oxford’s Physical and Theoretical Laboratory, whose group is a world leader in developing electrochemical sensors for extremely precise detection. A previous invention that can measure the concentration of drugs such as cannabis and amphetamines by rapidly analysing a small sample of salive is being developed by Oxford spin-out Otox Ltd.

“This is an exciting project because this technology has the potential to disintermediate a market worth nearly a billion dollars annually, that is dominated by a 70-year-old technology,” said Lee Leonard, CEO of Phathom. “Introduction of these sensors will be analogous to replacement of vacuum tubes with solid-state transistors. With that comes the opportunity not only to improve existing processes already using pH measurement and control, but to address new opportunities where the existing technology cannot be used due to calibration, drift and mechanical limitations.”

“Our pH sensor technology has several key advantages over the glass electrode technology still widely used in industry,” said Compton.  “They are more accurate, enabling tighter control of pH-critical manufacturing processes. Co-inventor Dr Greg Wildgoose added: “The sensors are also self-calibrating, eliminating the problem of reading drift over time experienced with glass pH electrodes.”