SAN ANTONIO – Port San Antonio is home to several game-changing companies and one of them, Intertek, is currently utilizing a team of University of Texas at San Antonio students to stay at the forefront of their industry.
Intertek regularly tests emission on every day pieces of equipment and Diesel engines.
Now, a team of University of Texas at San Antonio students, is helping in that endeavor.
“I love technology, things like this excite me a lot,” Raj Patel, project manager said.
Raj Patel is a member of the The R2D2 Visionaries team, a group of UTSA students who helped develop a new system of testing exhaust emissions.
“Teaming Up with UTSA has enabled us to fulfill some of the obligations that we have in house, to try and move the needle forward,” Steve Griffin, manager Intertek Carnot Emission Services said.
Intertek is a globally-renowned name in emissions testing, as the company is a go-to authority that engine technology developers, manufacturers and other industries rely on to make sure their engines meet certain requirements.
The collaboration is a first for Intertek — and it seems to be working well.
“It’s revolutionary for us, and I do think that there are some aspects of this that are revolutionary for the industry,” Griffin said.
The type of testing is key to companies that make everyday appliances and pieces of equipment, engines ranging from half a horsepower to 2000 horsepower and that means emissions.
“It’s a significant chunk of the background contamination, because we only have so much air in a room we only have so much air in our atmosphere,” Griffin said.
The testing process is complicated and unique, but it comes down to this: you have the clean filters and by the end they have something that shows the particulates in the emission.
“It would be like ash unburned fuel and pollen falls under particulate,” Griffin said.
With the new system referred to as a “bench”, the sampling methods show tangible evidence of the final measurement much faster.
As for Raj — he is headed back to UTSA for his master’s and has big plans for what he and his team started.
“Yeah and this is just the beginning, it’s a prototype. It’s a working prototype. Reusability is very important for us, so that’s the goal from from here,” Patel said.