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ION Science formally received its Queen’s Award for Enterprise last week, following the April announcement of its win in the ‘Innovation’ category before the recent death of Her Majesty.

The company designs gas sensor technology. Its key product, the MiniPID, can detect more than 950 different compounds, many of which can pose a serious threat to human health and life. It designs and manufactures the sensors at its The Hive, Fowlmere, base which contains a staff of 110.

ION Science’s key product is the MiniPID, which offers unparalleled detection of VOCs (volatile organic compounds), helping to protect lives and preserve the environment.

VOC sensors are used extensively worldwide in applications where the rapid, accurate detection of hazardous gases is critical to safeguarding workers, the public and the environment. These include oil rigs, gas refineries, pharmaceutical manufacturing plants, semiconductor factories, laboratories, nuclear facilities, and air quality monitoring.

Capable of withstanding temperatures of -40 to +65 °C, relative humidity up to 99 per cent (non-condensing), and with an anti-contamination design, the MiniPID sensor range offers 10,000 hours of reliable detection, making it ideal for long-term monitoring. They also have the widest detection range on the market, from as low as 0.5 ppb (parts per billion) right up to 10,000 ppm (parts per million), making them suitable for virtually any application.

“To receive the Queen’s Award for Enterprise recognises the unrelenting efforts of our team in developing the now award-winning PID gas sensors, offering the market high quality and reliable results,” says ION Science managing director Duncan Johns. “We never stop innovating and our team continues to push the boundaries in sensing technology.

“Our guests were impressed by what they saw when they visited the growing headquarters in Cambridgeshire – as a business we continue to invest in our future and our people.”

The innovation award has been brewing for quite a while – since ION was founded in 1989, in fact, as Duncan explained later in the week.

“We have one particular sensor which we’ve made, and we own the IP. It is genuinely clever, so what we do is world-beating. We’ve had the sensor since 2008 but we’ve been refining it all the time.

“The basic IP is around gas detection for VOCs, The MiniPID basically a specialised light bulb which is excited by high-frequency radio frequencies which produce an ultraviolet range at a particular wavelength which we can choose. It breaks up any gas put through it – it ionises it. Inside the device are electrodes which capture the positive or negative ions.

“A standard lamp lasts 10,000 hours – a year to 18 months use’ continually lit. That bulb and electrode are defining part of product. “

“Nobody else in Europe makes our sensors,” Duncan adds. “There are manufacturers in China and the US but we’re the best in the world, the benchmark for quality and performance.”

It seems ION could just as easily have won in the export category.

“The bulk of what we make ends up in export markets,” Duncan says. “International sales is 80 per cent of our business – to Asia and the US, and into Europe. Even our UK customers sell on.

“There’s a fruit-ripening application where they literally control their ventilation, there’s applications in health and safety, soil monitoring, fire departments, so if they are at the scene of a spill and they don’t know what it is, they can check for VOCs to determine if breathing kit is needed. Also for arson investigation – our detectors can check if there’s an accelerant in the ashes of the fire. “

He adds: “We sell the MiniPID in an instrument as single product or sell it as a sensor for uses we don’t always know about. Typically it’s processing chemicals. A significant new market is for the production of lithium ion batteries – they have all sorts of problems with chemicals. It’s a worldwide problem, but most typically in Asia and the US.”

Duncan has been with the company since 1999. His commitment has taken him to the top – “it’s been a 10-year process but I own it”, he remarks.

ION Science is expanding. Annual turnover is £35m, but “the aim is to get it to £100m”. An R&D facility is being built at the company’s HQ at The Hive in Folwmere. Recruitment is ongoing. Financially, the company is looking at bank loans rather than investment rounds.

“We own other businesses,” notes Duncan. “French, German, Italian and Chinese – as a group – and we own other UK companies including Shawcity near Oxford, and we’ll be adding more to our group further on.”

Dignitaries at the event included HM Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Julie Spence; the deputy lieutenant, Christopher Walkinshaw; the High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire, Jennifer Crompton; Lord-Lieutenant Cadet, Georgia Pescod; and South Cambridgeshire MP, Anthony Browne.