A printing firm thought they were onto a winning deal when they bought a cancelled order of powder-coated drink bottles. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason the inks that the company used, would not adhere to the bottles.

Chemical Guidance became involved and, using a series of chemical washing procedures, were able to identify that the powder coat layer had a "slipping agent" incorporated within the coat during manufacturing. This makes the bottles really easy to clean, which is great for the end user, but next to impossible to print onto.

Our recommendation was to recycle the bottles and buy new bottles where they could control the ingredients in the powder coating. The only other way was to invest hundreds of thousands into new washing equipment and a significant increase in chemical risk (the cleaning solution is very toxic and flammable).

Chemical guidance has been teaching chemical risk management for the past decade. We have been to many organisations and have found many weird and wonderful compounds.

We have found unsealed radiation sources, organic peroxides, desensitised explosives and more.

Dr Casey Davies has been a chemical safety officer, radiation protection officer and delegated operator within the tertiary sector. With the skills and knowledge that he has gained, he can easily deal with any material that you may have.

To be able to effectively run a printing machine, the etching of a press plates needs to be the perfect depth to be able to add the right amount of ink.

A printing firm, when developing a new printing plate or trying to diagnose issues, will need to know the exact depth of the plate. This is not as simple as using a tape measure or calipers.

At Chemical Guidance, we know the right people and the right piece of kit. In one example, using advanced spectroscopic techniques, we were able to identify the depth as 27.7 μm. Human hair widths are between 17 and 180 μm. So, pretty thin!