Technology

Posted on December 18, 2017 by staff

Funding for corrosion detection tech firm

Technology

An East of England tech company which develops remote sensors for monitoring corrosion in oil and gas pipelines has secured a £250,000 investment from tech investor Mercia Fund Managers.

CorrosionRADAR, a spin-out from Cranfield University, is looking to address the industry problem of monitoring corrosion in pipelines.

The Bedfordshire and Cambridge-based company’s technology is permanently embedded and can accurately pinpoint the location of corrosion at any point along the full length of a pipeline.

The main aim of the technology is to help companies reduce maintenance costs, while sustaining a high standard of safe and environmentally friendly operations.

“CorrosionRADAR is addressing an unmet industrial challenge in a global market,” said chief executive Dr Chiraz Ennaceur.

“Our vision is to support industry moving from reactive to predictive corrosion management using cutting edge technologies from distributed sensing technology to Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) and advanced analytics.”

The funding from Mercia has been met with a further £104,000 from Innovate UK through its investment accelerator pilot programme.

It will support CorrosionRADAR with developing its technology and business to secure commercial partners for initial field tests.

Ennaceur added: “The CorrosionRADAR team is committed to creating a game changing solution for tackling corrosion management and we are looking forward to working with Mercia, which is supporting us through this exciting journey.”

Dr Brijesh Roy, investment manager at Mercia, said: “There is a significant and growing market for CorrosionRADAR to address the key issue of corrosion-related failures for customers that currently have unmet needs and an appetite to adopt new technologies.

“The experienced team has considerable expertise and strong industry links, which when coupled with their ambition, makes us confident in their ability to really scale the business.

“According to the European Corrosion Congress, the oil and gas industry spends around £3.5billion managing corrosion every year, this provides a significant opportunity for CorrosionRADAR to solve this vital gap in the market.”

CorrosionRADAR was established by an international team of four scientists and business professionals, including Dr Prafull Sharma and professor Hoi Yeung, who developed the original technology, and COO Dr Mehrdad Silatani, who has significant experience in innovation and technology management.

The business is led by CEO Dr Chiraz Ennaceur, who has more than 15 years of experience in taking new technologies from the research stage to product development.