One spectrum every second

See the reaction while it happens

Offline sampling tells you what your process did hours ago. OrionIR® is a 0.1 mL flow cell on your process loop, reading composition every second — through aqueous, strongly absorbing and low-concentration streams.

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Where this comes from

A spin-off from A*STAR, building instruments that have been running in plants

We are creating the world's most compact solutions to enable accurate, repeatable, robust and real-time chemical analysis — leaving time for customers to focus on getting their job done.

Paeonia Innovations was founded in April 2023 as a spin-off from A*STAR, led by Dr. Lennon Lee, inventor of the technology, with the technology licensed from A*STAR. Dr. Lee is the former Head of Department at A*STAR's Institute of Microelectronics. The OrionIR® has been field-tested under industrial conditions in North America, South America, Europe and Asia, and held its spectral stability across a repeatability test of more than 100 days.

How it works

What an offline sample costs you, in order

Three separate errors stack up before the analysis even starts, and the third is the expensive one.

  1. 01

    The reaction does not stop when the sample leaves

    Unless it is quenched instantly and completely, conversion continues in the vial. The number you eventually get describes a state your reactor passed through and has already left.

  2. 02

    The sample is not the bulk

    A grab sample comes from one convenient point. In any stream with solids, a second phase or incomplete mixing, that point is systematically different from the vessel.

  3. 03

    The answer arrives after the decision

    Chromatography takes as long as it takes. A result two hours behind a ninety-minute reaction is a record for the batch report, not an input to control.

  4. 04

    And between samples, nothing is recorded at all

    Intermediate, exotherms, precipitation onset and impurity formation all happen faster than a sampling interval. In a sampled dataset they appear as one odd point, or as nothing.

What it is, concretely

A transmission flow cell that plumbs into a recirculation loop or a representative side stream. The hand-tight fittings and the specifications published below are for our Lab version.

< 1 s

Between spectra. Fast enough to watch a reaction turn.

5 × 5.5 × 6 cm

Lab Version: 450 g, drawing 600 mW over one USB-C cable.

0.1 mL

Void volume. Almost nothing is held up in the cell.

2,200:1

Signal-to-noise over a 6-second integration.

900–1800 cm⁻¹

Mid-IR fingerprint range, at a 20 µm path as standard.

1800–3500 cm⁻¹

Second mid-IR range, at a 25 µm path as standard.

Robust

No interferometer, no fragile optical fibres, no cooling.

0.6 W

Low enough for the intrinsically safe Plant Version.

What you actually measure

Concentration in real time is the capability. These are the decisions it unblocks.

Process analytics

Reaction & process monitoring

Conversion, rate and endpoint as a continuous curve rather than three sampled points.

See the application

Flow characterisation

Residence time distribution

One-click RTD from a USB device, with the plot generated automatically at the end of the run. The measurement a continuous line has to produce, not calculate.

See the application

Formulation

Emulsification monitoring

Oil, water and surfactant concentrations as the phases come together, so the endpoint is a measured composition rather than a fixed mixing time.

See the application

Bioprocess

Fermentation & bioreactor control

Substrate, product and inhibitory by-products continuously, so feed rate follows the measured state instead of a fixed profile.

See the application

Quality

Blending & purity verification

Confirm the ratio in line and catch the off-spec batch during the run rather than at certification.

See the application

Ultrafast photonics

Pump–probe without a delay stage

K2 Photonics shared-cavity dual-comb systems scan roughly 20 ns of optical delay with nothing that moves. Represented by Paeonia across Asia.

See the application

Who runs it

The physics is the same everywhere. What changes is which decision the blindness blocks, and what your regulator or your customer accepts as evidence.

Pharmaceutical

PAT, continuous manufacturing, IQ/OQ/PQ.

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Specialty chemicals

Endpoints, selectivity, scale-up.

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Petrochemicals

Continuous streams and classified areas.

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Food & beverage

Incoming goods control and batch release.

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Cosmetics & personal care

Emulsions and homogeneity endpoints.

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Semiconductor

Wet process bath concentration and purity.

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Academic research

Kinetics and ultrafast measurement.

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Photonics OEM

A source you design in and never service.

Learn more

One measurement we have published in full

A step-input experiment on a coiled tubular reactor, using 10% acetone in ethanol as the tracer. The peak residence times aligned closely with theoretical expectation, and the RTD curves consistently captured the subtler secondary features — bypassing, dispersion and tailing — that a nominal residence-time calculation cannot show.

It ran live: tracer concentration plotted as it changed, with the curve generated automatically at the end. Read the application note.

One measurement we have published in full

Testimonials

Customer voice

“We chose your sensor because of its compact design and the ability to capture real-time data (1 spectrum per second), which makes it convenient to use and well-suited for our experiments.”
LyLy Leow Hui Ting Nanyang Technological University

What your engineers will ask first

Is it a probe or a flow cell?

A flow cell. The sample reaches a 0.1 mL cell through a recirculation loop or a representative sampling point, on 1/8″ or 1/16″ tubing with 1/4″-28 flat-bottom fittings. It is not inserted into a vessel and it is not fibre-coupled — avoiding fibres is what removes the mid-IR transmission losses and the mechanical fragility.

Can it handle our slurry?

Within limits: particles <15 µm and viscosity under 10,000 cP, with an inline filter of 15 µm. It does not measure solids. If your stream sits outside that, we would rather say so during the feasibility check than after the purchase order.

Can we use it in a classified area?

The standard instrument uses an intrinsically safe design, made possible by its 0.6 W power draw. For a classified area needing certification, ask us about the ATEX-certified spectrometer series.

Who builds the calibration model?

We do, as a service, and it ships integrated into the instrument software as its built-in model. If you would rather own model building in-house, our partner KAX Group's VEKTOR DIREKTOR™ builds models and integrates them through ProaXesS. How the model is built.

Will it survive our plant?

No interferometer, no moving components and no fibres, so there is nothing inside to fall out of alignment. Spectral data held stable across a repeatability test of more than 100 days. A built-in signal-to-noise self-test reporting instrument health and cell cleanliness is in development.

Can we try it on our own material first?

Yes. Send your process samples and we will measure them. Where it fits we loan the instrument, so the evaluation happens on your process rather than in a demo.

The instrument is the easy part

An inline measurement project that budgets for the hardware and not for the model has budgeted for half the system. This is the other half.

  • Chemometric model built against your chemistry and your reference method, then validated on batches it never saw.
  • Sample testing and instrument loan, so feasibility is established on your process before you commit.
  • Installation Qualification supplied; Operational and Performance Qualification run jointly with your team.
  • Training from basic operation to troubleshooting, so the measurement does not depend on one person.
  • Ongoing calibration support as feedstock, temperature range or product specification changes.
  • Custom integration where the measurement has to sit inside an existing line rather than beside it.

All of it is available on its own if you already own the instrument.

Tell us the measurement you cannot make today

Describe the stream, the chemistry and the decision it blocks. We will come back with whether the OrionIR® can see it, and what the configuration would be — or say plainly that it cannot.

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