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June 6, 2006
Wet soil evaluation gets a boost with new technology, new Indiana companyWEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Purdue Research Foundation announced today (Tuesday, June 6) that it has licensed a technology to West Lafayette-based startup InMass Technologies Inc. that allows technicians to quickly identify hydric soils without extensive digging or expensive equipment.
InMass Technologies Inc., a Purdue Research Park company with manufacturing facilities in West Lafayette, was granted exclusive rights by the foundation’s Office of Technology Commercialization to the proprietary Indicator of Reduction in Soils (IRIS) technology developed at Purdue University in the 1990s.
Hydric soils have the feature of being anaerobic, or devoid of interstitial oxygen, due to the presence of water, which limits contact with the atmosphere. In anaerobic soils, microbes are present that reduce and dissolve iron. The company’s half-inch-diameter IRIS tubes™, which are rugged, plastic pipes coated with naturally occurring iron (Fe) oxide, indicate hydric conditions once they have been immersed in soil for several weeks.
“If the IRIS tubes™ are exposed to any microbial activity they will develop a mottled appearance visible to the naked eye,” said Byron Jenkinson, owner of Jenkinson Environmental Services. “The ability to cover large areas for relatively little cost, followed by easy-to-evaluate results in weeks instead of months, gives this technology the advantage over traditional methods for identifying groundwater.”
Jenkinson is co-inventor of the technology that was discovered while he was a doctoral student working on a research team led by Donald Franzmeier, professor emeritus of agronomy in Purdue’s College of Agriculture. Their research to determine new methods to address the issue of soil saturation and anaerobiosis was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources Conservation Service Wet Soil Monitoring Project, which was a 10-year, $2 million intensive study of landscape hydrology.
“This practical and reliable technology allows us to do a better job of understanding how ecosystems drain and how and where organic contaminants travel through soil,” Franzmeier said.
Applications for the IRIS tubes™ include identifying and preserving wetlands, determining the depth of soil saturation, identifying failed septic systems, analyzing organic carbon present in the soil, and locating water tables. InMass Technologies’ clients include soil scientists, bio-remediators, regulators, environmental engineers and consultants, and mine and land reclamation experts.
About InMass Technologies Inc. InMass Technologies Inc., a Purdue Research Park company with manufacturing facilities in West Lafayette, Ind., is developing and manufacturing proprietary Indicator of Reduction in Soils (IRIS) technology discovered at Purdue University. The IRIS tubes™ manufactured by the company provide a superior method to the process by which technicians evaluate hydric soil conditions. The company is operated by four brothers — Byron, Paul, John and David Jenkinson — who bring extensive scientific, sales, construction, manufacturing and distribution, and electronic systems experience to the venture.
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Related Web sites: Purdue University
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