CO2 leak tester provides cost savings

The Leak-Master is designed to find leaks in individual flexible and rigid pharmaceutical and food packaging using carbon dioxide CO2 detection technology, and produces considerable savings over using water as a leak tester, according to Witt Gas​.

The company has modeled various ways in which using the Leak-Master instead of water-based testing can provide cost savings. For example, for a packaging company with a single packaging line - immersing sample packaging in water to test 15 packs every hour - would save more than £8,000 a year by switching to Witt Gas' system.

"Against the purchase cost of the largest chamber size Leak-Master, this would represent just over a two month payback,"​ according to Carl Long, general manager of Witt Gas' Cheshire-based unit.

A version of the machine for the food industry was introduced last year, but the new variant has been adapted to also serve the needs of the pharmaceutical industry.

The savings are achieved by cutting the time it takes to conduct tests, re-work labour costs, the fact that there is no product or packaging destruction with Leakmaster, and reduced equipment maintenance costs."These cost savings are based on one packaging line: the higher the number of packaging lines, the higher the saving,"​ said Long.Leakmaster is portable and only takes a couple of seconds to detect a leak.

Leak-Master uses ceramic sensors for CO2 Detection to find out if the protective atmosphere used in the packaging is escaping. As well as being non-destructive, the use of helium, an expensive tracer gas used in rival gas-based systems, is not necessary.

The unit is small, portable, and can be set up easily and quickly anywhere, according to the company. The operator defines the relevant product parameters, including leak level, measurement time, and vacuum level using the keypad. Test time can be further reduced with the optional bar code scanner.