Orono Spectral Solutions Rethinks Oil Testing

For years, the ritual was familiar inside industrial laboratories: a large water sample, a hazardous solvent, a fume hood, an oven, a balance, and an analyst waiting through a slow process that few people liked but many accepted. In refineries, ammonia plants, offshore operations, and water treatment facilities, oil testing was not only a technical task. It was a daily drain on time, safety, and focus. Orono Spectral Solutions, based in Hermon, Maine, saw a better path. With ClearShot, its solvent-free oil testing platform, the company helped move a decades-old method into the modern laboratory, giving analysts a faster way to work without asking them to replace the infrared instruments already on their benches.

Solvent-Free Oil Testing From A Maine Innovator

Orono Spectral Solutions, also known as OSS, was built around a practical question with major consequences: why should the measurement of oil in water still require a liter of sample, roughly 100 milliliters of hexane, specialized handling, and hours of analyst time? For industrial labs, the old approach was inconvenient, but it was also deeply embedded. Methods, training, equipment, and regulatory habits all reinforced the status quo. The result was a process that many labs simply tolerated because there had not been a better way that fit the realities of industrial testing.

That changed when OSS developed the solvent-free method behind ASTM D7575, a national test standard validated by twelve independent laboratories and reapproved in 2024. The method gave laboratories a new route: a 10 mL sample, a few minutes of analysis, no fume hood, and no hazardous solvent waste. In EPA testing, the OSS method recovered 99.6 percent of the oil measured by the approved reference method. For analysts who had built their schedules around extraction, evaporation, weighing, and cleanup, that shift changed the rhythm of the lab.

The company's origin story sits at the intersection of environmental responsibility, practical engineering, and spectroscopy. In 2007, the EPA withdrew faster instrument methods that depended on an ozone-damaging solvent. Many labs were pushed back toward older solvent extraction methods, even though those methods were slow and unpleasant. OSS stepped into that gap. Rather than ask laboratories to choose between speed and safer work, the company built a method that could support both. It did so by pairing patented sampling and analyzing technology with infrared instruments many labs already owned.

Under CEO Graham Roeber, who took the helm in 2026, OSS is entering a new chapter. Roeber brings the perspective of a marine engineer and an MBA in logistics, a combination that fits a company serving industrial customers across 44 countries. His focus is on helping essential industries modernize the work that happens inside the lab, where small changes can improve safety, speed, compliance support, and confidence across an operation. As Roeber puts it, “Most industrial labs are still running a test designed for a different century. Our job is to give them a better way to work without asking them to buy a new lab.”

Graham Roeber And The ClearShot Breakthrough

ClearShot is the flagship product, but its real value is best understood through the people who use it. A lab analyst in a refinery or ammonia plant often works under pressure. Operations teams need answers. Compliance teams need reliable data. Managers need efficient workflows. Traditional oil in water testing can slow that chain of decisions because every step demands time and careful handling. ClearShot changes the sequence. The analyst uses a small sample, conducts the test on existing infrared equipment, and avoids the solvent handling that once shaped the process.

That difference explains why the company's work has reached customers in 44 countries. The benefits are direct and measurable in the daily life of a lab: faster results, fewer consumables, safer working conditions, and no hazardous solvent disposal tied to the test. Leading instrument manufacturers, including Thermo Fisher, Shimadzu, Bruker, and JASCO, publish methods that use ClearShot. That matters because industrial labs tend to be careful adopters. They need methods that fit their workflows, align with recognized standards, and work with equipment already in use.

OSS also holds patents in the United States, Europe, Canada, and Brazil, which reflects the company's investment in building a durable platform rather than a short-term fix. While oil in water testing remains the clearest example of the technology's impact, the same platform has extended into oil in ammonia, urea, and DEF testing. The company also offers related technologies, including ClearSampler, for collecting unknown materials. Its applications now reach areas such as oil and gas, ammonia, DEF, soil, beverages, electronics, and other industrial sectors where rapid characterization can support better decisions.

For Roeber, the mission is both technical and human. He is leading OSS at a moment when industrial companies are under pressure to improve efficiency, reduce waste, and support safer work environments without disrupting production. That requires a special kind of innovation, one that respects the systems already in place. “The best thing a lab analyst can tell me is that they forgot what the old method was like,” Roeber says. “Faster results, no solvent, no fume hood. That is the whole point.” The best laboratory modernization does not add complexity. It removes it.

Solvent-Free Oil Testing For Modern Industrial Labs

The breakthrough behind Orono Spectral Solutions is not only that ClearShot works. It is that the method meets laboratories where they are. Many industrial labs already own infrared instruments from major manufacturers. Instead of forcing a capital equipment decision, OSS built a consumable-based approach that fits the bench. A lab can improve the way it tests for oil without redesigning its entire operation. In industries where downtime, retraining, and procurement hurdles can delay useful improvements, that practicality is powerful.

The company's story also reflects a broader shift in industrial testing. Laboratories once accepted slow, solvent-heavy methods because those methods were established. Today, the best labs are looking for cleaner workflows, quicker answers, and stronger alignment between safety and performance. Solvent-free oil testing speaks directly to that need. It reduces sample volume from a liter to 10 mL. It removes hexane from the procedure. It compresses hours into minutes. Most important, it helps analysts spend less time managing burdensome preparation and more time delivering information that operations can use.

Roeber sees this as the beginning, not the finish. “OSS is a spectroscopy company, not a one product company,” he says. “Oil in water is where we started. Modernizing how industrial labs test is where we are going.” That ambition is grounded in the company's history. OSS has already helped define and validate a recognized method, earned adoption across global industrial markets, and built relationships with the instrument ecosystem that laboratories trust. Now, the company is applying that same approach to adjacent testing needs in ammonia, urea, DEF, and beyond.

For refineries, fertilizer and ammonia producers, offshore operators, and water treatment facilities, the promise is straightforward: modern testing that supports faster decisions and safer lab conditions without unnecessary disruption. Orono Spectral Solutions offers a practical path for teams that know the old way too well and are ready for something better. To see how ClearShot and solvent-free oil testing can fit an existing laboratory workflow, explore OSS, review the ASTM D7575-based approach, and connect with the team working to bring industrial lab testing into the present. Connect with Orono Spectral Solutions, Graham Roeber on LinkedIn, and Orono Spectral Solutions on LinkedIn.