News

On the 14th October 2011 we successfully achieved certification of our Environmental Management System (EMS) to ISO 14001:2004, confirming SGA Technologies continual commitment to our environmental responsibilities. This certification process took 2½ years to complete and involved many technical and operational enhancements to our environmental processes and controls. As a result we now make use of the best available technology on the market in order to maintain control over our processes. Our certificate is available for viewing on our website.

In accordance with the requirements of ISO 14001:2004, SGA Technologies has radically overhauled its chemical storage facility. In order to maintain safe storage of chemicals, some volatile, the storage facility is now fully air conditioned and the bunding has been extensively improved which now incorporates fully sealed flooring and a specially designed pit ensuring that, in the unlikely event of a large accidental spillage within the storage area, any chemicals are quickly captured and cleaned up in a controlled manner.

Plating processes inherently produce an effluent (waste water) that contains some non-dissolvable solids. SGA Technologies effluent used to be collected by tanker every month in the form of sludge. The filter press allows the on-site separation of these solids from the effluent and presses them into a ‘cake’. The effluent is then further treated through our on-site effluent plant in order to allow safe and legal disposal by us whilst the filter cake is collected by a registered specialist waste contractor. Dealing with our process waste in this way has drastically reduced the volume, frequency and associated cost of waste collection!

SGA Technologies has recently upgraded its AAS with a new instrument that utilises the latest software and double beam technology. This gives greater accuracy and repeatability of results when analysing solutions that cannot be measured by standard volumetric methods. Standard volumetric analysis will allow accuracy of 0.1grams per litre, whereas AAS will allow analysis down to 0.1milligrams per litre (0.1 parts per million).  

AAS is also a valuable tool for the analysis of our treated effluent water stream. This enables us to monitor water quality ensuring we comply with local water authority consent limits and also allows us to monitor trace impurities in our plating solutions. This keeps the finish performance of our processes at the high level required by our customers for wire bonding and soldering purposes.