The covid vaccine, solar cells and asbestos fibers; the endless applications of the electron microscope. For FHI Tech Stories we speak with Arnold Kruize from FHI member company JEOL Benelux.
Arnold Kruize is Sales and Marketing Manager for JEOL Benelux. JEOL Benelux is a Japanese company of scientific equipment. The E and O in the name JEOL stand for Electron and Optics: the heart of the company. Three quarters of the company's activities are in electron microscopes. In addition, JEOL Benelux is active in NMR, Mass spectrometers, medical equipment and recently the first 3D printer based on electron beams was introduced.
The market for specialist scientific equipment is a long-term market. Development is a process that takes years and sales can also take years. It is a small world. Everyone knows each other. An additional advantage is that in general, JEOL Benelux employees “continue to work at JEOL Benelux until they retire.”
One of the current developments that Arnold notices is that the first step in the search for information is online. Unfortunately, it often turns out afterwards that this information is incomplete, not up-to-date, or downright incorrect. On a technical level, one of the developments is now time saving; the work-flow is accelerated by integration and automation steps, which shortens the “time to answer”.
The biggest development of the past 10 years is the direct detection cameras in large transmission microscopes. This allows you to get a good image for cryo transmission electron microscopy with extremely low electron doses. “This has caused a revolution. And ultimately the Nobel Prize was awarded for this in 2017.” Thanks to this technique, we are now able to extract much more detail, much more resolution, from protein structures. Thanks to this technique, we can now better understand what happens at the molecular level in biology. This was crucial, for example, in the development of the covid vaccine. In addition, this technique has many other applications in materials science, and in fundamental physics and chemistry. Arnold Kruize gives the developments in the field of solar cells as an example. What happens to the material under the influence of light? This is a step that was impossible 10 years ago. Another application that is now being researched a lot is batteries. The development of detectors that can detect lithium makes fundamental and practical applications possible that we could only dream of a few years ago.
For the next 10 years, Arnold expects more experimental setups. Being able to follow a process live. In addition, he expects developments in combining existing applications. Combining the various existing analytical techniques with each other. Combining a mass spectrometer with an electron microscope.
At the moment, the development in the field of facilitating the operation of a device is going very fast. But, Arnold Kruize adds here, we are still stuck with the operator for the interpretation. He wonders out loud whether we can give AI a role here. As an example, he mentions the identification of asbestos fibers. For the time being, the identification of asbestos fibers is mainly dependent on the operator. This could be taken over by an AI in the future.
JEOL Benelux is a regular participant in the WoTS and this year they are participating in LabNL. Firstly, to make and maintain existing and new contacts. Secondly, to “be present”. To show yourself to the world and to the visitors.
As a small bonus, Arnold has a suggestion: He would really like to take a course in procurement law at FHI. I have hereby passed on his suggestion and we look forward to a successful LabNL 2023 fair. Register for a free visit to the fair via this link.
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