The story of BPC Instruments

From research idea to international instrument company

BPC Instruments’ journey began in 2005 with Bioprocess Control, founded from research at Lund University by Dr Jing Liu, Kristofer Cook and Professor Gustaf Olsson. The starting point was a practical challenge in anaerobic digestion. Laboratories and plant operators needed better tools to understand feedstock quality, methane potential and process performance before making decisions at laboratory or plant level.

At the time, many long running biological tests depended on manual routines, separate measurement devices and fragmented data handling. This made the work time consuming and placed a lot of weight on individual laboratory practice. It also made it harder to compare samples, follow process behaviour and build repeatable workflows.

That challenge led to AMPTS^®, a system that brought methane potential testing and anaerobic batch fermentation into a more automated analytical workflow. Measurement, monitoring and data handling were brought together in one system, helping laboratories move beyond manual gas readings and towards more structured biological process analysis.

As the company grew, the same thinking found a new role in material testing. Biodegradable plastics, polymers, textiles, adhesives and packaging materials also need controlled laboratory data. Claims about biodegradability and compostability depend on how materials behave under defined biological conditions, not only on what they are made from.

This became an important next step for BPC. With BPC^® Blue, the company expanded its analytical platform into aerobic and anaerobic biodegradability testing, including compost related workflows. The instrument helps laboratories follow biodegradation over time, compare materials and work with automated respirometric data instead of manual routines.

Today, BPC’s systems are used across several fields where biological processes need to be measured and understood. Biogas, biodegradability, animal and human nutrition, wastewater treatment and biohydrogen all ask different scientific questions, but they share a similar need. Laboratories need controlled tests, reliable measurement, structured data and workflows that can be repeated.

BPC Instruments is now a Swedish technology company with customers in more than 90 countries. Our systems are used by universities, research institutes, testing laboratories and industrial customers working across renewable energy, material testing, nutrition, wastewater and environmental biotechnology.

The idea that started the company still guides our work today. We help laboratories analyse biological processes with less manual work, better structure and data they can use with confidence.