Portal Medical utilize a variety of analytical techniques and are experts in XPS testing and interpretation. All of the intellectual property within the company has been primarily gained from the testing and analysis of the nano-coatings developed for pharmaceutical devices.

XPS is surface sensitive technique which chemically characterises the outermost 5-8nm of a surface providing quantified elemental and chemical functionality information. A beam of X-rays of known energy irradiate the surface. This energy is enough to cause electrons from the outermost atomic layers to be emitted. The energy of these electrons is measured in an electron analyser. The energy of the X-rays arriving at the surface and the energy of the emitted electrons is now known, so the difference gives the binding energy of the atom from which it came, hence the element can be determined. By looking at small regions of the spectrum at high resolution, subtle shifts in the binding energy can determine the functionality of the element, i.e. what it is bound to.