Tag: cerulean

Novelties for Novel Products

Photo: Cerulean
Cerulean has expanded its range of next-generation nicotine product testing equipment.
By Stefanie Rossel
As the nicotine industry and its regulators continue to focus on novel nicotine products, it is no surprise that reduced-risk product testing receives a lot of attention in instrumentation suppliers’ R&D departments.
“We are still in many ways ignorant of the impact of the aerosol from vapes and heated-tobacco products (HTPs) on respiratory systems, especially when the aerosols are laced with flavors that are safe for ingestion but not necessarily so when dosed to the lung,” explains Ian Tindall, head of innovation and marketing at Cerulean, a U.K.-based supplier of precision test and measurement equipment that belongs to the Coesia group. “This sort of work is needed for regulatory submissions for sure. It is also prudent to be certain that changes in formulation have no unforeseen consequences.”
Cerulean has been developing testing equipment for HTPs and e-cigarettes, cannabis vaping and modern oral nicotine recently. For HTPs, Cerulean has a comprehensive suite of products that is either already available or will be released this year. Tindall says Cerulean has launched a couple of new machines specifically for toxicological testing of HTPs this year. “One is a budget model—the CETI5 that produces a constant aerosol from HTPs and includes pre-activation options for HTPs plus puff control, angled use, button pressing and so on,” he says. “Unusually it uses a five-puff engine configuration, which removes the necessity for moving valves and items under test. We think of this as an entry model to the world of aerosol generation for toxicology studies.”
“CETI” stands for Cerulean E-Cigarette Testing Instrument and is the name of a whole range of products that can be used not only to test HTPs but also to assess e-cigarettes and cannabis vape products. The CETI5’s continuous exhaust is created by synchronizing the puff engines to sequentially exhaust and generate a constant flow of aerosol—a feature highly desirable for toxicological exposure studies. Users can program a puffing routine to establish deliveries from various e-cigarette, cannabis vape and HTP devices. The angled vaping option is meant to mimic human use. In line with recommended regimes for HTPs and vape products, the CETI5’s regimes can be configured for different puff volumes, puff duration and puff interval.
HTP Assessment
The CETI CF, meanwhile, features a more conventional rotary-type setup with a moving valve. According to Tindall, it is considerably more sophisticated in terms of the analytical options available, including impingers and electrostatic precipitator traps as well as air-liquid interface exposure systems. “The software is more flexible with a full traceability package, which is quite important for regulatory submissions.”
The CETI CF is a continuous-flow, five-channel vaping machine that complies with ISO20768:2018. It is designed to run as a continuous aerosol generation device through the use of the dual piston pump situated at the heart of the machine. The pump, which can pull puff volumes of 35 mL to 150 mL, switches between inlet and outlet, creating a continuous aerosol that can be delivered to any target system required. The glass construction of the dual pump and its ease of removal allows for thorough cleaning, thereby minimizing cross-contamination between runs. The CETI CF comes with a fully capable interface that is simple to use, includes security features and can be interfaced with a laboratory information management system.
In addition to developing new machinery, Cerulean has added to its X-ray measurement a capability that looks inside sticks and measures hidden parameters by offering the facility that the company has on its Quantum Neo test station for 150 mm-long rods X-rayed as part of a suite of measurements. “We have separated this [function] out and come up with a stand-alone X-ray system in the Solo Q device,” says Tindall. “It has all the safety features you would expect as well as a user interface tablet that can be removed from the stack for easier handling.”
Instrumentation for assessing HTPs is presently most sought after by customers, according to Tindall. “HTPs are simply the big kid on the block,” he says. “The designs are settling down—although if you look at the array of patents being published, you may argue differently. Key quality measurements seem to be those measured after the combiner has done its job. Standard equipment can mostly ensure component manufacture is correct. Hollow acetate tubes have required some different inspection that we introduced last year, but essentially, this is all pretty standard stuff. The combiner is where everything comes together, and here, any defect in construction will impact the consumer experience, so this is where innovation in test equipment is focused. The X-ray system is one example of finding a solution to investigating potential construction faults. Another is the addition of a closed-loop control to the combiner or maker.”
A Rising Star
The up-and-coming field in quality assurance (QA) is modern oral. “The principles look simple, but QA testing is still a bit hit-and-miss,” says Tindall. “As these pouches become more sophisticated with different contents, capsules, formats and colors, this is going to be an expanding market.”
In early 2022, Cerulean launched Orion, the first automated test station for snus, which measures the weight, length and width and the tensile strength of the pouch seams as well as extension against load. “To date, we are very pleased with the impact Orion is making in the marketplace, and we have struggled to get enough machines directly in front of customers,” says Tindall. “One of the bizarre things for us has been [that] when we talk about testing pouched products, we get mixed responses. When we show the equipment, almost universally the interest transforms, and we end up adding a new name to the list of people wanting to trial the equipment.”
Cerulean has further developed Orion by adding a moisture measurement station. “This was specifically designed for pouches with more than 15 percent moisture, as many of the white snus pouches have,” says Tindall. “It is quick and is part of the automation and so complements standalone systems that may be slower or more suitable for dry pouches. We have some further ideas for quality parameter checking and are developing the fundamental technologies, but these will not reach maturity for 18 months.”
Cannabis is Cerulean’s third priority, according to Tindall, but a lack of legislative drivers and a volatile market make it difficult to effectively serve a potential customer base. “We published a suite of white papers, available on our website, with our Denver-based partner Kaycha Laboratory, which were all concerned with THC aerosol generation specifically for capture and subsequent metals analysis, as specified by the Colorado state regulators,” he says. “We showed, with Kaycha, that we needed specific conditions to get high THC content liquids into the aerosol phase, and we developed a specialist heater jacket that we made available in our catalogue that keeps the THC oil liquid warm, allowing a low viscosity for analytical experiments. We then worked with Kaycha on a capture system because electrostatic trapping simply does not work. In the end, we sourced low metal content quartz capture pads for Kaycha, and they can now effectively report the limited selection of metals in aerosol that Colorado requires.”
The company also made improvements to its THP and cannabis testing products. “We have added the heater jacket for cannabis products, which fits on any of our smoking and vaping machines,” says Tindall. “And we have launched the CETI1, a simple single-channel vaping machine for research projects. It retains all the features of more sophisticated machines without the typical high cost.”
Among the innovations was also an enclosure for the CETI8, an eight-channel vaping instrument, to capture any fugitive emissions. The hood covers only the operational portion of the machine, comes with several filters and allows for a complete air exchange within two minutes. According to Cerulean, the enclosure is effective at stopping unwanted odors from reaching users. Furthermore, it mitigates the ingress of contaminants to laboratory surfaces. “It came about after our portfolio manager, Helen Taylor, and I were working in a cannabis lab and realized that at the end of the day, our heads were singing from low-level exposure to cannabis aerosol,” says Tindall with a smile.
Cerulean has two big releases planned for the fourth quarter of this year, but Tindall is quick to stress the company’s continued support for exiting equipment. “It’s always fun to talk of new products and market opportunities, but we must not forget that there is a hell of a lot of equipment still in use from years past, and we make a point of supporting the needs of those customers as well,” he says. “That is why, on top of our service team and technical support team, we are actively ensuring that equipment can be modernized through upgrades so that a machine maybe bought 10 years ago can be updated to a current specification with all that implies for the changing face of our industry.”
Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.

August 1, 2023
All Eyes on Harm Reduction

Photo: Borgwaldt KC
Suppliers of instrumentation and lab services are focusing on novel nicotine products.
By Stefanie Rossel
Two things are for sure: Instrumentation and lab service suppliers don’t have any time to be idle. And a look at their most recent innovations conveys a good idea about where the nicotine industry is heading.
Two years ago, instrumentation manufacturers and providers of laboratory services were busy supporting makers of electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS) with their submissions for premarket tobacco product applications (PMTAs) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“It certainly has been an interesting two years for ENDS manufacturers,” says Chris Allen, chief executive officer of Broughton, a U.K.-based contract research organization helping companies with delivering full-service regulatory projects.
Chris Allen
“In the last few weeks, there have been marketing denial orders (MDOs) for multiple Myblu and Juul products as well as three high-profile manufacturers being awarded marketing orders for their products. Broughton is thrilled to have played a significant part in the granting of some of these marketing orders, and we expect more to come soon.
“With these five separate PMTA decisions, the FDA has given the industry an indication of where the bar is set for gaining a marketing order. It also gives additional insight into its evaluation process as the rationale behind the Myblu and Juul MDOs were very different. Although not everyone benefited from these decisions directly, they have given manufacturers new confidence to move forward with product development and future business roadmap decisions.”
Nicotine companies are now considering new PMTA applications, modified-risk tobacco product (MRTP) applications and marketing authorization applications for products under European Medicines Agency regulation. “The industry isn’t losing its appetite or ambition for innovation and new product development,” says Allen. The PMTA process is now firmly established as one of the costs of selling next-generation nicotine products in the U.S., and manufacturers have adapted to this and are moving forward.”
In addition to full-service solutions, Allen observes a significant interest in Broughton’s standalone services, such as toxicological assessments and laboratory services, many of which are in support of preparing for or responding to PMTA deficiencies. “Unfortunately, many companies have been provided with a substandard service for their PMTAs. Now [that] we have understood the bar for gaining approval, many companies are requesting us to provide extra evidence to submit before their applications enter into substantive review.”
Focus on Reduced-Risk Products
Joost Elvers
Reduced-risk product (RRP) testing continues to be at the core of instrumentation suppliers’ business. “The industry as well as governmental organizations still have a strong focus on new-generation products like e-cigarettes and heated-tobacco products (HTPs),” notes Joost Elvers, group leader of key account management at Borgwaldt KC, a German manufacturer of quality control instruments and devices that is part of the Hauni group of companies, which also includes metrology specialist Sodim. “New product designs combined with upcoming further regulations and standardizations will continuously require close support,” says Joost. “Besides, the combustible product category experienced a focus revival with the opening of markets to cannabis and hemp products. We are therefore strengthening our portfolio of quality control equipment for the different product categories as well as our broad range of emissions testing devices. Furthermore, with the reduction of Covid-19 measures in companies and countries, our team of service engineers has increased its service activities again to support our customers on site in addition to the remote services that have been introduced over the last 2.5 years.”
U.K.-based Cerulean is focusing on three tobacco-related areas, according to Ian Tindall, head of innovation and marketing.
“The first is supporting companies within the ever-expanding heated-tobacco product market,” he says. “This still requires a lot of specialist equipment to generate information needed in support of MRTP applications as well as other product development activities.
“Also, with increasing amounts of products coming to full-scale production, we are finding routine quality assurance equipment is definitely an area we see as expanding. Partly, we are addressing this need by working with our sister company G.D in providing closed-loop control for makers and combiners and partly, it is rolling out and deploying our X-ray equipment to monitor combiner output.
“A second area we are really excited about is in producing routine test equipment for modern oral products as we see this as a rapidly growing area where quality assurance can be automated and improved. We launched a product, the Orion, just for this market, and we have received almost overwhelming positive feedback from companies.
“The final area is in supplying test equipment for the safe regulation of legal recreational cannabis use in the United States. We have rapidly found that this is not another cigarette-type application, and we are learning alongside clients how to ensure the safety and compliance to regulation of these now legal products.”
While the Orion is currently one of Cerulean’s most sought-after products, Tindall has detected another trend, which he finds difficult to describe. “It’s the service that starts with a customer saying, ‘I want to measure something, but I am not quite sure what,’” says Tindall. “The service is about working with customers to develop test and measurement equipment for new-to-the-world products that have no background of tests to ensure conformance.”
While Cerulean’s commitment to customer confidentiality prevents Tindall from elaborating on current projects, he cites the example of a customer who wants to prevent burst capsules from wetting tipping paper. “We might come up with a way to measure the radial and longitudinal positioning of the capsule in the filter, which prevents liquid getting too close to the outside tipping paper,” he says.
New Testing for New Products
Cerulean’s Orion
Cerulean’s Orion, the first automated snus test station to enter the market, is but one example of an array of innovations for testing novel nicotine products. Currently, the Orion measures the weight, length and width of the pouch along with the tensile strength of the pouch seams as well as extension against load.
“We will, before the end of Q3, deploy extra measurements in the form of longitudinal pouch seam position and overlap, pouch transverse seam size and pouch moisture,” says Tindall. “We are listening to the customer base and expect to be adding further enhancements in the future once we have really established what is important to our customers, including the potential for auto-sampling and feedback to a maker to reduce reject rates. We expect Orion to follow the trajectory of most of our products in that it will be developed and enhanced as our customers’ needs change.” The Orion can be used for all types of modern oral pouches as long as the size fits in the maximum and minimum dimensions allowed and the pouches follow a rectilinear format.
Sodim recently introduced a test station dedicated to the testing of HTP consumables. “HTP and RRP confront us with many challenges, such as different format compatibility and new measurement request,” says Christine Camilleri, director of sales and marketing at Sodim.
“This, combined with sustainability, guides our development team toward instruments [that are] fully scalable, responding to the needs of this market as regards to quick product changes. All our test stations are compatible with HTP products of any size. Multiple diameter measurements on filter rods are an example.”
From Borgwaldt comes the LM1E DtL, a new vaping machine that provides direct-to-lung testing. ISO 20768 requires aerosol to fill the mouth before entering the lung, which is commonly named mouth-to-lung vaping.
Consumers, however, tend to vape different products differently. Borgwaldt KC developed the LM1E-DtL based on the draft development standard of CEN/TC437. “This vaping machine fulfills the requirements of an additional vaping regimen considering inhalation from an electronic cigarette directly into the lung,” explains Elvers. “As you can easily imagine, the emissions composition differs from that generated under the ISO 20768 process and therefore reflects the consumer exposition much better.”
Design Support
The industry’s focus on RRPs is reflected in the demand for lab services too. With nicotine pouches, one of the most rapidly growing segments within the reduced-risk category, Broughton is seeing much interest in its consulting and testing services. “There are some interesting innovations around oral pouch materials, so our feeling is that the scope for oral pouches will grow beyond nicotine. The products are covered by the PMTA process within the U.S., so we have been busy providing support for these applications. Within the EU, any work performed is typically to support product development and/or due diligence. As per the ENDS analysis, the focus is placed upon nicotine content and HPHCS [harmful and potentially harmful constituents]. However, automated (flow-through) dissolution analysis is widely used to support the R&D process.”
Broughton is also offering development services for next-generation products as well as for cannabinoids, another big theme in the sector. The company already has a medicinal cannabis and CDB business. For novel nicotine products, it has launched a division that helps customers design their products in a way that increases the chance of regulatory approval, for example by ensuring that development decisions taken early in a project support the later stages of a planned regulatory submission or go-to-market strategy.
“This could be early development material or ingredient selection to expedite extractables and leachable studies or ensuring product designs are suitable for mass-market manufacturing scale-up,” says Allen. “Our services are completely scalable to the needs of the client so we can help with one stage of product realization or work as an extension of an in-house development team all through the product lifecycle. We created the service in response to requests from existing clients, so we know there is a demand for this sort of expert advice and consultancy.”
As far as trends are concerned, Allen sees growth in the diversity of nicotine-delivery systems. “There are more heated-tobacco products, more modern oral nicotine pouch manufacturers plus innovations like water-based vape devices and new heating mechanisms,” he says. “Disposable vape devices are also growing in popularity, and there are some exciting innovations around device material selection, especially focused on improving the recyclability of products, which we predict will be very important in the future. At Broughton, we work with a wide variety of ENDS manufacturers of different sizes and backgrounds. We are seeing a lot of new technology coming from regions like the Middle East, India and Indonesia in addition to where you’d expect it to come from, such as the USA and China. It really is a very dynamic industry with lots of new players looking to bring something different and differentiated to the market.”
Greener Measurements
While flexibility plays an important role in novel-products testing equipment, Borgwaldt KC and Sodim have also noticed growing demand for sustainability. “We can currently see two trends gaining momentum within our customer base. One is for sure the change in available product portfolios of some of our customer groups; the other is the realization of sustainability targets in the instruments environment,” explains Elvers.
“We therefore spend many efforts in making flexible emissions testing solutions for combustible cigarettes and cigars as well as for the new electronic product segment of ENDS. The successful launch of the 10-port vaping machine NGX10 and its continuous modularization with further add-ons shows us the high demand for such a modern and ENDS-dedicated solution on the market. Besides this, the trend of rethinking life cycles of instruments and how they can be converted for new demands to save resources made us create our ‘lifetime extension’ program in which we update older instruments with the newest measuring technology by fully building upon existing infrastructure and reusing or refurbishing existing parts for a more sustainable outcome.”
Camilleri notes that customers are moving to “green” products, such as hemp and cannabis. “On physical parameters, they are aiming to get fast measuring solutions in a quickly changing market,” she says. “Specific developments become the norm compared to standard solutions in the past. We orientate our products on super flexible instruments adapted to different market environments and production allowing long-term evolution of test stations, including the possibility to upgrade them to cater to new product trends. Our products can have several lives in different segments of the industry, reducing the impact on the environment.”

Christine Camilleri
Testing Without Standards
As more countries legalize cannabis, instrumentation makers detect new opportunities—even though testing standards are not yet in place. “Weight is currently the most important parameter, but we also see a new interest to measure the same physical parameters as in conventional cigarettes to improve the quality of the products and reduce cost generated by waste,” says Camilleri, whose company has adapted its Sodiline and Sodiqube test stations to cannabis testing.
Borgwaldt and Sodim are active in the raw material and emissions testing segments of cannabis products. “Combined with the experience gained with production machines of our sister companies Garbuio and Hauni, we established ourselves as a main contact point for raw material and production control as well as emissions testing for cannabis products,” says Elvers.
Borgwaldt has developed an electrostatic precipitation trap, HV1, which is used to trap emissions for the analysis of metals. Being a phytoextracting plant, cannabis collects and saves metals from the soil so that these elements will be released during the smoking and consumption process. “This smoking and vaping machine-independent solution can be used as a flexible add-on for the emission control of metals of cannabis products,” says Elvers.
Cerulean also has an electrostatic precipitator trap upgrade kit in its portfolio. The company has been working with Kaycha Labs in Denver, Colorado, USA, to overcome some of the problems inherent in the Colorado state requirement for emissions testing for metals, and it has published several white papers describing some of the changes required to allow a vaping machine to work with highly viscous cannabis oils. “This work supports the multiple machines we have sold to legal operations in the United States and hopefully demonstrates our commitment to this new industry,” says Tindall. He hopes that a set of practical conditions and analysis standard operating procedures can be adopted by the cannabis industry that provide a basis for comparisons from state to state.
Agility is Key
Regarding future requirements for testing equipment and lab services, Sodim and Borgwaldt KC say agility will be key. “Demands change within months, [and] products appear and disappear on the markets in a short period of time, therefore we as a supplier of quality control and emissions testing equipment have to keep up and even overtake these market demands and show our ability to react fastest to new market challenges,” says Camilleri, speaking for both companies.
“Also, digital solutions within the instruments business are expected to play a bigger role in the future. This can be related to the use of data being generated by measurement equipment or the combination and common usage of such data by the measuring instrument and the manufacturing systems. Even the partial replacement of physical measurements by a digital process is something to be considered as a future requirement.”
“My personal view is that we have probably hit, or are near to hitting, an innovation ceiling for vaping products,” predicts Tindall. “HTPs are still in a growth phase, and there will be other entrants beyond the big players currently in the market. There will be novel HTPs for sure over the coming five years.”
Tindall expects quality assessment and quality control for physical tests to transition from the laboratory to the production floor. “This means we need to have robustness and simplicity of operation in the forefront of our equipment design,” he says. “Especially if, as I expect, HTP manufacture is increasingly accompanied by more stringent traceability [requirements] as HTPs become even more highly regulated than combustible cigarettes. This will make current good manufacturing practice a baseline requirement that our equipment would need to support. Moreover, the interconnectedness of manufacturing processes and data retrieval becomes a fundamental of design and not just an afterthought.”
The recreational cannabis market, he says, will continue to spread. “This will mean that belatedly, there will be regulation of emissions, requiring new vaping equipment.”
With more than 1 billion adult smokers in the world—a number that is still increasing—Allen expects demand for testing to support regulatory submissions to increase over time, with a demand for more sensitive testing criteria, more in-depth analysis of test data and great insight from real-world evidence based on human factor studies over longer time periods.
“Remember, this is still a very young industry, so continuing to collect data is going to be essential to underpin belief in reduced-risk products and their contribution to tobacco harm reduction,” he says.
Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.

August 1, 2022
Cerulean Debuts Snus Test Station

Photo: Cerulean
Cerulean has launched Orion, the world’s first automated test station for snus.
The Orion can handle oral pouches of all commercially available size formats, including mini, large, maxi and slim.
The instrument measures pouch weight, length, width, end seam width, longitudinal seam overlap width and pouch tensile strength. According to Cerulean, the Orion requires only a few minutes to configure and perform the test. The instrument is equipped with an intuitive user interface that provides key information, graphical representation of process capability and stores the data in a network accessible SQL database. A powerful vision system takes images of both sides of every pouch that are used to measure the pouch dimensions, seams width and longitudinal seam position.
The Orion test station reduces the number of operators per line and provides fast, consistent and repeatable users’ independent testing process with real time visualization of the test results, configurable report generators and readily available connectivity to LIMS and MES systems.
According to Cerulean, the Orion saves operator time and improves quality through independent, fast, consistent and repeatable testing of pouches. With a real time visualization of test results and configurable report generation, the Cerulean test station guarantees that the production process is always in control.
January 29, 2022
Cerulean Offers Aerosol Measurement
Cerulean has launched a new stand-alone Aerosol Temperature Measurement System (ATMS), the company announced on its website.
The ATMS is designed for research and quality assurance applications to measure the temperature of aerosol generated from e-cigarettes and heated-tobacco products.
The ATMS monitors and records aerosol temperature on a puff-by-puff basis in real time and is available in multiholder configurations of one, four, five, eight, 10 and 20 channels.
Comprising a supplied portable computer with an intuitive user interface and ISO-compliant Cambridge Filter Holders, the ATMS can be fitted to any vaping machine and will record and display in real time the aerosol temperate during the experiment.
March 10, 2021
Cerulean Offers Remote Troubleshooting
Using high-quality audio, video and augmented reality, Cerulean is now offering real-time diagnosis and troubleshooting of its instrumentation.

According to the U.K.-based supplier of precision test and measurement equipment, the experience is “exactly as if we were right beside you—without the need of a physical presence.”

Dubbed “Cerulean XpertWorldAssist,” new service is specifically designed to mitigate unplanned downtime affecting customers’ equipment.
September 16, 2020
Cerulean Shares Insights into Automation

Photo: Cerulean
Cerulean has released a white paper on automating processes in vape laboratories.

“Appropriate automation significantly reduces the variability inherent in some processes and can increase laboratory efficiency as well as presenting the potential for increasing efficiencies by reducing the number of staff present at any point in an analytical cycle, so helping with social distancing in this current climate,” according to Cerulean.

The white paper recommends adopting operator-independent techniques to help smoke and vapor laboratories.
July 31, 2020
Cerulean Partners With Sirius Automation

Photo: Cerulean
Cerulean is partnering with Sirius Automation of Buffalo Grove Illinois, USA, a specialist in the design, development and manufacture of high-quality laboratory automation equipment and solutions.
Ian TIndall
Sirius Automation and Cerulean will collaborate on the supply and marketing of integrated solutions for laboratory automation around the globe. The partnership compliments Cerulean’s existing product offerings and improves the company’s ability to provide leading edge, innovative laboratory automation solutions.
“This partnership between Cerulean and Sirius Automation is fantastic news for our customers, who can now benefit from a wider range of laboratory automation products and solutions,” said Ian Tindall, Cerulean head of innovation and marketing.
July 13, 2020
Cerulean Appoints New Head of Sales

Paul Glenn (Photo courtesy of Cerulean)
Paul Glenn, head of sales and aftersales at Cerulean, will be retiring at the end of 2020.
He will be succeeded by Gianmarco Guiduzzi, who joins Cerulean from G.D where he worked as a key account manager for multinationals within the tobacco sector.
With a master’s degree in engineering from Bologna University and an executive MBA from Bocconi University, Guiduzzi is well qualified to deal with the ever-changing tobacco market, according to Cerulean.
Guiduzzi will act as head of sales and aftersales designate until Glenn’s retirement.
“I’d like to personally thank Paul for his dedication and service during his time here at Cerulean and wish him a long, happy and healthy retirement,” said Steve Frankham, managing director of Cerulean.
“I’d like to take the opportunity to welcome Gianmarco to the Cerulean team. Gianmarco has been working closely with Cerulean since the Coesia acquisition in 2017 and I have the greatest confidence that he will pick up where Paul has left off and continue to grow the business.”
Glenn has spent much of his working life in the tobacco industry. He joined Cerulean in 2008 from Courtaulds Acetate where he was sales director for 10 years.
June 29, 2020
Cerulean Presents X-Ray Measurement Technology

Cerulean has introduced into its Quantum Neo physical test station a shelf capable of routinely and rapidly X-ray imaging cigarettes and filters.
The need arose from the limitations of current inspection methods when testing complex, combined products such as those used for tobacco-heating products. X-ray imaging allows visualization and accurate measurement of the size and position of hidden elements without damaging or destroying the product under test. Compliant with all U.K. radiological protection standards, the fully shielded system is suitable for the factory floor for automated routine product analysis.
Beyond the obvious R&D application, adding the powerful X-ray tool to the Quantum Neo QA/QC stack enables the producer to speed product release to the market with confidence that the constructional features in his products are fully compliant to specification. The power of the tool can be applied to complex tobacco-heating products and conventional products. Location of flavor capsules radially and longitudinally is simple and not limited by the proximity of other capsules or features, such as carbon filters, a significant limitation of microwave systems.
The Cerulean system utilizes a low-power X-ray source and a custom detector array. This arrangement (patent pending) produces a full rod image in less than six seconds. A suite of advanced software tools, automatically applied to the brand specification, measures hidden features’ length and size with an accuracy of up to 20 microns. Additionally, tube concentricity, capsule position and integrity as well as voids and defects can be detected and measured. Thick or metalized tipping paper does not present difficulties of measurement for the system.
The straightforward software tools make this suitable for use by operators and technicians as well as laboratory scientists.
This novel hardware configuration is both robust and competitively priced when compared with more conventional standalone systems such as CAT scanners.
Integrating the X-ray shelf (designated “Q” by Cerulean) into the Quantum Neo test station provides a powerful analytical tool when coupled with more conventional measurements, such as PDV, size or weight measurements, with the added benefit of leveraging other Quantum Neo capabilities, such as autosampling from the mass flow or from a GD combiner for the ultimate in QA measurements.
Orders for Quantum Neo containing the Q shelf can now be taken on standard lead times.
May 1, 2020