Environment.
Six principles we apply to the design and manufacture of our instruments, and how our own record compares.
What we aim to do
- Minimise energy and materials usage
- Maximise product lifetime
- Design for easy disassembly, for maintenance and to allow materials to be recycled at end of life
- Reuse materials
- Recycle anything that cannot be reused
- Dispose of waste materials responsibly
Our design record provides examples of how we put these aims into practice.
What the record shows
Product lifetime
We designed the microK in 2004 and Isotech retired it in 2024, once the microK² family was complete. Twenty years is a long production life for an electronic instrument, and the ones already in laboratories did not become obsolete on the day the successor arrived. The microK 70 and 125 ran from 2009 on the same platform.
Some of that is a decision taken for measurement reasons that happened to pay off here. Every instrument we have designed switches its signals with solid-state devices instead of mechanical relays, because relays are the component in an instrument like this most likely to fail. Removing the most common cause of an early failure is also how a product stays out of a skip.
Energy and materials
Between the two generations of Johnson noise thermometer the converter went from 45 W to 3.3 W, and from 6,970 cm³ to 16 cm³. We did that to get the instrument off the bench and into something portable, and it took roughly nine tenths of the energy and almost all of the material out of that part of the system.
- The original microK, in production and service
- 2004 to 2024
- Converter power and volume, first generation to second
- 45 W → 3.3 W · 6,970 cm³ → 16 cm³
The measurement itself
There is another environmental benefit that follows directly from the research. Conventional thermometers in hazardous or inaccessible locations may need to be retrieved for recalibration or replaced periodically. Johnson noise thermometry determines temperature from the measurement itself, allowing the sensor to remain in place even if its characteristics change. That can mean fewer interventions, fewer replacement probes and less need to handle or transport sensors from hazardous environments.