1. Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN):
An ACAN is a public notice indicating to the supplier community that a department or agency intends to award a contract for goods, services or construction to a pre-identified supplier, thereby allowing other suppliers to signal their interest in bidding, by submitting a statement of capabilities. If no supplier submits a statement of capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, on or before the closing date stated in the ACAN, the contracting officer may then proceed with the award to the pre-identified supplier.
2. Definition of the requirement:
The National Research Council Canada (NRC) has a requirement for the supply of a thermal analysis system which comprises a Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) and a Thermogravimetric Analyzer-Mass Spectrometer (TGA-MS) to upgrade its characterization labs for polymeric materials.
A new thermal analysis system will be integrated to the Automotive and Surface Transportation Research Center’s characterization labs which comprise a suite of existing thermal analysis equipment from TA Instruments: Classic ARES Rheometer, G2 ARES Rheometer, Q800 Differential Mechanical Analyzer and Q2000 DSC.
The following scope items are part of this package:
• One Differential Scanning Calorimeter unit;
• One Thermogravimetric Analyzer-Mass Spectrometer unit
3. Criteria for assessment of the Statement of Capabilities (Minimum Mandatory Requirements):
Any interested supplier must demonstrate by way of a statement of capabilities that its system meets the following requirements:
1) Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) unit must have:
• operational temperature range of -90°C to 725°C;
• electrical cooling system to provide the lower -90°C temperature limit without the need for liquid nitrogen;
• 54 position autosampler;
• direct on-line Cp (heat capacity) measurement;
• user replaceable cell;
• dual input gas delivery manifold;
• calibration kit;
• sample press and appropriate pans;
• 5-year warranty on DSC cells and furnace;
• software and communication kit for instrument control and data analysis and management; all software must be capable of reading, opening, analyzing and processing archived data, methods and protocols, which must be compatible with TA Instruments format, without the use of a conversion program. The data analysis software should be unkeyed to allow for unlimited installations within one site;
• baseline linearity (between -50° and 300°C) less than 5 µW. Base linearity is defined as the average absolute deviation from a best fit linear regression of a baseline scan without any smoothing or blank subtraction applied;
• baseline repeatability (between -50° and 300°C) less than 5 µW. Base line repeatability is defined as the average standard deviation of at least 10 empty cell baseline scans (data collected at 1°C intervals), opening and closing the lid in between each run;
• baseline accuracy (between -50° and 300°C) of ±20 µW. Baseline accuracy is defined as the maximum allowable error from the theoretical value (0 µW) for any measured baseline value over the temperature range noted;
• heat low digital resolution of 0.001 µW;
• baseline noise (-50°-300°C) less than 0.2 µW;
• temperature accuracy of ±0.025°C;
• temperature precision ±0.005°C;
• temperature repeatability ±0.025°C;
• enthalpy precision of ±0.04%;
• enthalpy repeatability of ±0.25%;
• indium response ratio equal or greater than 100. Indium response ratio is defined as the height to width ratio of an indium melting peak of a 1±0.02 mg sample, at 10°C/min, in a nitrogen atmosphere: data measured as collected from the instrument with no post-test desmearing, deconvolution or other manipulation.
• electrical components of the differential scanning calorimeter must be approved by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA or cUL) and the unit must bear the certification label.
2) Specific Requirements for Thermogravimetric Analyzer-Mass Spectrometer (TGA-MS) unit must have:
a) Thermogravimetric Analyzer (TGA) component must have:
• operational temperature ranging from ambient to 1200°C;
• high resolution TGA, modulated TGA and auto-stepwise TGA functionalities;
• 25 position autosampler;
• dual input gas delivery manifold;
• integrated electromagnet;
• temperature calibration melting point standard;
• temperature calibration as per ASTM E1582;
• 5-year warranty on furnaces;
• software and communication kits for instrument control and data analysis and management. Software must be capable of reading, opening, analyzing and processing mass spectroscopy data obtained from the coupled mass spectrometer in parallel with TGA to allow the correlation of data obtained from the two methods. The software should also allow simultaneous opening, processing and analyzing DSC data which must be compatible are in TA Instruments format, without the use of a conversion program to allow the simultaneous correlation of thermal phenomena observed in DSC and TGA. The data analysis software should be unkeyed to allow for unlimited installations within one site.
• sample weight capacity up to 1000 mg;
• dynamic weighing range up to 1000 mg;
• weighing precision of ± 0.01%;
• dynamic baseline drift (from 50°C to 1000 °C) less than 10 µg, with platinum pans. The dynamic baseline drift is defined as the maximum deviation from the smallest measured weight to the largest measured weight of an empty platinum pan, while being heated at 20 °C/min in flowing nitrogen atmosphere (without any blank subtraction applied) or any post-test scheme applied;
• baseline linearity (from 50°C to 1000 °C) less than 1 µg, with platinum pans. The baseline linearity is defined as the average absolute deviation from a best fit linear regression of a baseline scan without any smoothing or blank subtraction applied;
• signal resolution of 0.002 µg;
• sensitivity less than 0.1 µg (1 ppm). The sensitivity is defined as 3 times the average rms noise over the temperature range from 50 to 1000 °C;
• measured at the sample (not furnace or programmed temperature) temperature range from ambient to 1200 °C;
• temperature accuracy of ±1 °C;
• dynamic temperature precision of ±1 °C;
• isothermal temperature precision of ±0.1 °C;
• linear heating rates ranging from 0.1 to 500 °C/min;
• ballistic heating rates equal or higher than 1500 °C/min;
• forced-air furnace cooling system enabling cooling from 1000oC to 35 °C in less than 10 min.
• electrical components of the thermogravimetric analyzer must be approved by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA or cUL) and the unit must bear the certification label.
b) Mass Spectrometer (MS) component must have:
• must have a benchtop quadrupole designed and optimized for evolved gas analysis;
• must be compatible with the thermogravimetric analyzer as described above in Section 1.1.2.1;
• should include a cross-beam ion source, a single mass filter and a dual detector system. The dual detector system must include a Faraday detector and a Secondary Electron Multiplier detection system. The user must be able to change between the two detectors;
• must be user-friendly and allow for basic maintenance by the user. The instrument must contain dual, customer changeable filaments. The capillary must be quartz and also be user changeable;
• must have data collection able to be controlled from the thermogravimetric analyzer. The ability to program the start and/or stop of the mass spectrometer at any time during the thermogravimetric analyzer run is necessary;
• the instrument setup, control, and experimental parameters must be through a recipe-driven software interface. The analysis of the mass spectral data must also be through the same interface. The mass spectrometer data has to be able to be directly imported into the thermogravimetric analyzer data analysis software and plotted on the same graph as the thermogravimetric analyzer data. This data must be compatible with TA Instruments TRIOS and Universal Analysis programs;
• the mass spectrometer must meet the following minimum specifications:
? mass range (amu) from 1 to 300;
? mass resolution of 0.5 amu;
? sensitivity less than <100 ppb;
? sample pressure of 1 atm;
? include data collection modes: Bargraph and Multiple Ion Detection;
? scanning speed in bargraph mode higher than 50 amu/s;
? scanning speed in peak jump mode higher than 64 channels/s;
? transfer line temperature of 200 oC. Transfer line should be flexible, heated separately and compatible with the TGA system as described above in Section 2a).
• electrical components of the mass spectrometer must be approved by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA or cUL) and the unit must bear the certification label.
4. Applicability of the trade agreement(s) to the procurement
Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA)
World Trade Organization – Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP)
5. Justification for the Pre-Identified Supplier:
TA Instruments is the only supplier that can provide the technical specifications with the accuracy required by the type of highly precise characterization performed by our Center.
TA Instruments’ unique technology provides enhanced features such as flatter baseline, lower drift, better sensitivity and resolution, and higher speeds compared to other suppliers. It also allows the direct and on-line measurement of the heat capacity.
In addition, the mass spectrometer (MS) is 100% compatible with the TGA system through an interface that is specifically designed to couple this equipment. A single software also allows to simultaneously open, process and analyze the simultaneous correlation of thermal phenomena observed in both DSC and TGA-MS without the use of a conversion program.
All the equipment listed above are currently running on TA Instruments’ TRIOS and Universal Analysis programs. The new data formats must be compatible with such software to avoid loss of time and potential loss of previous data generated for the past 25 years. In addition, some accessories for sample preparation and peripheral components (cooling unit) currently used will be 100% compatible with the new thermal analysis system.
6. Exclusions and/or Limited Tendering Reasons:
Only one vendor is able to meet the unique technical requirements listed herein.
The following exception to the Government Contracts Regulations is invoked for this procurement under subsection 6 (d) as only one supplier is capable of performing work.
7. Ownership of Intellectual Property:
There are no IP considerations regarding this contract.
All IP generated on this instrument during its use by the NRC AST Research Centre belong entirely to NRC and its Research partners.
8. Period of the proposed contract or delivery date:
NRC is expecting the equipment to be delivered within a month after contract award, based on the date of the contract. Delivery time frame is expected to take 2 to 4 weeks.
9. Name and address of the pre-identified supplier:
TA Instruments - Waters L.L.C.
159 Lukens Dr., New Castle, DE USA
19720
10. Suppliers' right to submit a statement of capabilities:
Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the goods, services or construction services described in the ACAN may submit a statement of capabilities in writing, within 15 days, to the contact person identified in this notice on or before the closing date of this notice. The statement of capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets each of the advertised requirements in Section 3.
11. Closing date for a submission of a statement of capabilities:
The closing date and time for accepting statements of capabilities is June 11th, 2024 at 2:00PM EDT.
12. Inquiries and statements of capabilities are to be directed to:
Paul Hewitt
National Research Council Canada
Senior Contracting Officer
Email: Paul.Hewitt@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
