A joint venture company called CICAM (China Isotope Corporation AEA Technology Manufacturing Co Ltd) will manufacture 24 million smoke detector foils this year at the large new factory in Shenzhen. It is also planned to manufacture an innovative new security system that incorporates smoke, intruder and other monitoring devices. This is a major expansion of the joint venture that was launched in 1992.
CICAM has moved from its original premises where it has been mounting detector foils and manufacturing complete ion chambers for several years after annual sales grew from 17 million to 24 million foils. Growth in the market has been caused by changes in US building regulations and growth in the Chinese market. The new factory will initially employ 50 staff for smoke detector manufacturing.
Smoke detector foils are made from Americium-241 that is incorporated into a layer of gold and sandwiched between a layer of silver and a layer of palladium. They are placed inside smoke detectors and react with smoke to set off the alarm.
