SABIA, Inc. was founded April 2000 with the objective of making real-time, on-line analysis of bulk materials available to even the smallest materials producers and consumers wherever it can provide cost and quality advantages. The founders had been part of the team that first made prompt-gamma, neutron activation analysis (PGNAA) commercially viable in the early 1980’s. By 2000 they had also invented important instruments for nuclear-power plants and nuclear medicine. This background gave them the knowledge to go forward reducing size and increasing performance of PGNAA devices by applying twenty-first century technology.
The company was initially financed through company principals and by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy and the State of California. SABIA has a vision of total service for its customers and began business by providing services both to obtain needed operating finances and to gain first-hand understanding of customers’ needs in instrumentation. In 2006 with four PGNAA instruments fully developed, field proven, and registered with regulatory agencies, the company is now ready to go forward helping customers with all their on-line materials analysis challenges. SABIA received its first venture capital investment April 2006 for expanding sales and manufacturing capacity.
SABIA has designed all of its products with a high level of modularity, which allows every analyzer to use the same detector, the same electronics modules, the same computer, and the same software packages. This not only guarantees a high level of reliability in every instrument but also ensures that service personnel completely understand every instrument from its first day in the field. Another benefit of this modularity it the ease with which new instruments can be developed for new applications. These same modules can also be installed in older analyzers of any manufacture to improve their performance and eliminate problems associated with obsolete parts.
SABIA’s analyzers have been designed for highest performance, easiest installation, easiest maintenance, and lowest cost. Product introductions by date:
2002 – K-1000, Clinker analyzer for monitoring partially-cooled cement clinker
2003 – XC-5000, On-Belt Coal Analyzer for run-of-mine or final product.
2004 – XL-5000, On-Belt Cement Analyzer for quarry sorting or raw mix control
2005 – L-2000, QuickLab for immediate analysis of four-liter bulk samples
2005 – Conversion of old foreign-made analyzers to SABIA analysis and performance.
While SABIA has developed the world’s finest PGNA analyzers, it has also developed the preeminent team in this technology and is now focusing its energy and science on helping customers reap the benefits of these analyzers and solving their most difficult materials analysis challenges.
