equipment laboratory test equipment mechanical and plant engineering founded berlin germany 1873 1873 founder berthold pensky headquarters dahlewitz germany area served worldwide key people heinz kindlhofer florian wierzbicki number of employees 60 website www.petrotest.com petrotest gmbh is a german company of the anton paar group that manufactures laboratory equipment for the chemical and petrochemical industries among others . the company was founded in 1873 by berthold pensky 1 who also invented the pensky martens flash point tester . the company is located south of berlin in dahlewitz . contents 1 history 1.1 founding 1.2 1948 1978 1.3 1979 2012 1.4 since 2012 2 products & innovations 2.1 removable head for flash point testers 2.2 rssot rapid small scale oxidation tester petrooxy 3 references 4 external links history edit founding edit owner history after working at the former kaiser wilhelm institute in berlin dahlem now the federal institute for materials research and testing bundesanstalt f r materialforschung und pr fung berthold pensky started his own business manufacturing flash point testers viscometers grain testers and partial machinery . after a few years he sold his berlin based company then located at wilhelmstrasse 122 to two of his employees wilhelm sommer and max runge . they began operating under the name of sommer & runge which was retained until the 1990s with distribution markets at the time that included german empire the netherlands russia and romania . in 1914 wilhelm randow and adolf preukezas bought the company from max runge s widow ; later the company was acquired by wilhelm randow s children . during world war ii mainly airplane parts were manufactured ; the plant was partially destroyed in the bombing of berlin and temporarily relocated to dahme mark . 1948 1978 edit after 1948 the company was continued by erwin wierzbicki a grandson of wilhelm randow on the old premises and a manufacturing program of petroleum test equipment was specifically built up for the german speaking market . the products at that time were mainly precision engineered laboratory equipment but some of the first electromechanical automatic flash point testers were also developed and manufactured . 1979 2012 edit volkmar wierzbicki took over the company sommer & runge on january 1 1979 by purchasing it from his mother subsequent to having already founded the company petrotest in 1975 . the company sur was still a traditional company characterized by its highly skilled craftsmanship in the manufacture of laboratory test equipment for the petroleum industry . sales were almost exclusively focused on germany . the product range included about 100 different products with predominantly made to order production ; batches of five pieces tended to be the exception . in june 1985 an english language catalog was published for the first time which has been continually reprinted and updated . since the publication of the catalog foreign sales rose to about 80 % of total revenue and now include all of the oil producing countries . because of the issues stemming from the national and international ban on purchasing products from berlin the sales and export company petrotest laboratory supplies gmbh & co. kg was built in hamburg . in mid march 1989 after 85 years the lease for the company premises on bennigsenstrasse was terminated without conditions and the company moved to berlin marienfelde . effective january 1 1992 the company changed its legal form the companies sommer & runge kg petrotest v. wierzbicki berlin and petrotest laboratory supplies hamburg were merged to form a new company petrotest instruments gmbh & co. kg . the over 100 year old name sommer & runge had to be abandoned due to german commercial register regulations and the international recognition of the name petrotest . in 1996 the company set up operations for the first time in company owned buildings to the south of berlin in dahlewitz . since 2002 florian wierzbicki has worked at his father s company . at the end of february 2012 volkmar wierzbicki sold petrotest instruments gmbh & co. kg to the anton paar gmbh . since 2012 edit since march 1 2012 the company is named petrotest gmbh a company of anton paar . the general managers are heinz kindlhofer and florian wierzbicki . 2 products & innovations edit petrotest products are used for the quality control of petroleum products including crude oil liquefied petroleum gas motor fuel aviation fuel lubricating oil grease and bitumen . there are internationally standardized test methods for all of these products which for the most part were developed in and around berlin by scientists such as engler ubbelohde martens and pensky at the end of the 19th century . these processes have among other things been integrated into the standards of din astm ip and gost . the devices manufactured today meet these standards but are much easier for the user to operate due to the use of microprocessor technology . removable head for flash point testers edit in 1996 the removable head for flash point testers was patented thus giving the user the option to perform flash point tests with an automatic sample changer . this allows the user to accelerate the individual tests since the manual insertion the required cooling and the manual removal of the sample container are no longer necessary . rssot rapid small scale oxidation tester petrooxy edit numerous test methods for determining the oxidation stability of fuels are known and available . most of the test methods are outdated and require the user s considerable time and effort for the analytical work on the one hand on the other very large quantities of fuel are needed which represents a considerable safety risk . the results of these measurement methods are often very imprecise and can only be relied on with difficulty for assessing the stability of the fuels and the use thereof such as in the automotive industry . therefore in 2002 the development of a faster method of measurement was begun that uses a much smaller sample size with the aim of improving user safety and at the same time significantly improving accuracy . the development of this type of new measurement method was welcomed by the industry and proposed for an internationally valid standard measurement method . to this end the measurement method had to be presented to the technical committees of standardization bodies such as astm international in the united states and accepted for the development of a new method . the procedure was published in 2009 by astm international and includes the methods for gasoline astm d7525 3 and diesel biodiesel and blends astm d7545 4 . a european standard for liquid petroleum products en 16091 5 was published in 2012 by cen . the only device that currently functions according to these standards is the rapid small scale oxidation tester rssot which is exclusively manufactured and distributed by the company petrotest under the name petrooxy . the sole source of supply of the apparatus known to the committee at this time is petrotest petrooxy apparatus available from petrotest . instruments gmbh & co ludwig erhard ring 13 15827 dahlewitz germany www.petrotest.com . astm international ; astm committee d02 on petroleum products and lubricants ; subcommittee d02 .14 on stability and cleanliness of liquid fuels astm d7545 09 standard test method for oxidation stability of middle distillate fuels rapid small scale oxidation test rssot 2009 page 1 footnote 3 4 and astm d7525 09 standard test method for oxidation stability of spark ignition fuel rapid small scale oxidation test rssot 2009 page 1 footnote 4 3 for the development of this new measurement method the company received recognition for outstanding innovative results at the business innovation award 2007 of the potsdam chamber of commerce and industry . 6 references edit a timeline of highlights from the histories of astm committee d02 and the petroleum industry by george e. totten ph.d anton paar acquires petrotest group a b astm d7525 09 standard test method for oxidation stability of spark ignition fuel rapid small scale oxidation test rssot a b astm d7545 09 standard test method for oxidation stability of middle distillate fuels rapid small scale oxidation test rssot en 16091 liquid petroleum products middle distillates and fatty acid methyl ester fame fuels and blends determination of oxidation stability by rapid small scale oxidation method unternehmens innovationspreis 2007 industrie und handelskammer potsdam eine dokumentation der wettbewerbsteilnehmer und projekte business innovation award 2007 chamber of commerce and industry potsdam a documentation of contestants and projects german only ; pages 11 and 18 external links edit www.petrotest.com company website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title petrotest & oldid 597248891 categories engineering companies of germanyhidden categories articles created via the article wizard navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutsch edit links this page was last modified on 26 february 2014 at 17 25 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view