Logo Banner
February, 2014
News from Bronkhorst USA

Mass Flow and Pressure

Measurement and Control
In This Issue
Chemical Flow
Small and Mighty
March in Chicago
Good to Know
Laws and Guidelines
Quick Links

  
Follow us on Twitter
 
 
View our videos on YouTube  
Join Our Mailing List 

Chemical Flow

Improved Product Production

 

One of the main activities of Kingspan Insulation is to produce insulation panels for roofs, walls and floors. An essential part of this production process is the very accurate and stable control of the main stream. Besides that, the additives which will be added to the main stream need to be dosed with a very high accuracy. To gain the best quality of the end product, Kingspan started collaboration with Bronkhorst Cori-Tech and PROFIBUS.

 

Kingspan Insulation and Bronkhorst analyzed the production process and identified the problems. To gain the best results, replacing the large sensors and pumps (which were controlling at the bottom of their range) was necessary. Using (mini) CORI-FLOW instead of much larger mass flow meters and pumps resulted in the following benefits:

  • Very fast production of a high quality board
    • By using the (mini) CORI-FLOW sensors, Kingspan  Insulation gained a very fast response time of the sensors. This resulted in the possibility to produce (very fast) a high quality panel
  • Improve the quality of the panels
    • After introducing the sensors of Bronkhorst Cori-Tech, the quality of the end product improved significantly. The amount of the rejected end products has been decreased to the minimum.
  • Multiple parameter control over PROFIBUS
    • The communication over PROFIBUS made it possible to monitor multiple parameters like pump-control status, fluid density, alarms, totalizers, etc.

Small and Mighty

LIQUI-FLOW™ mini

 

LIQUI-FLOW mini The use of micro fluidic devices for research and analytical purposes has some important advantages. Firstly, because the internal volumes within the instruments are very small, the analysis will be faster and the amount of reagents and analytes used can be reduced. The latter is especially significant for expensive reagents. Furthermore, the physical dimensions are much smaller than those of conventional devices. This enables Life Sciences system integrators to downscale the size, inherently reducing the costs of ownership, of their equipment. Also, the availability of compact and lightweight instruments could lead to the development of portable systems.

 

LM02 WhiteBronkhorst High-Tech designed the LIQUI-FLOW™mini Mass Flow Meter (MFM) for liquids according to the micro fluidic concept. This very compact instrument measures ultra low flow ranges from 1.5...75 mg/h (0.025...1.25 μl/min) up to 12...600 mg/h, based on water. The straight, duplex steel sensor tube has an internal volume of less than 1 mm3 and operates on the thermal measuring principle. Due to its high pressure rating (up to 1000 bar; higher on request) the MFM is suited to HPLC systems. The instrument is equipped with a microprocessor-based printed circuit board, offering high accuracy and excellent temperature stability. The RJ45 connection is used for power supply and for both analog and digital (RS232/RS485) communication.

 

Features

  • compact assembly ensures space efficiency
  • very small internal sensor volume (0,88 mm3; smaller on request) for fast analysis
  • high accuracy and repeatability
  • insensitive to mounting position
  • high pressure rating (PN1000; higher on request)
  • easy cleaning due virtually no dead volume
  • straight sensor tube reduces risk of clogging

 

Applications

  • (Bio)medical laboratories
  • Food & Pharmaceutical industry
  • Analytical laboratories and systems (HPLC)
  • Flow chemistry using microreactors

March in Chicago

PITTCON 2014

 

 

Once again Bronkhorst USA will be exhibiting at PITTCON, this time in Chicago.

  

 

March 2-6, 2014

McCormick Place

Chicago, IL 

 

On display at Booth #1620 will be our accurate thermal MFCs, the world's smallest Coriolis meters and controllers, and our low flow high pressure liquid meters.

 

Good to Know

Importance of Knowing Reference Conditions 

  

Idea

 

Mass flow should actually be expressed in units of mass such as g/h, mg/s, etc. Most users, however, think and work in units of volume. This is not a problem, provided conditions under which the mass is converted to volume are agreed.

 

 

In order to use density in converting mass flow to volumetric flow, we must pick a set of specific pressure and temperature conditions at which we use the density value for the gas. 

 

 

Density of Air

 

Normal conditions (ln/min): reference conditions are temperature of 0 °C and a pressure of 1013.25 hPa (1 atm).

 

These reference conditions are indicated by the underlying letter "n" in the unit of volume used.

 

The direct thermal mass flow measurement method is always based on these reference conditions unless otherwise requested.

 

An example conversion to volumetric units using Normal conditions:

 

The mass flow meter indicates 100 g/h of Air flow.

Density Air (@ 0°C) = 1.293 kg/m3

X ln/m Air = 100 g/h / (60 minutes x 1.293 kg/m3)

Flow = 1.29 ln/m Air

 

 

Standard conditions (ls/min): reference conditions are temperature of 20 °C (instead of 0 °C) and a pressure of 1013.25 hPa.

 

These reference conditions are indicated by the underlying letter "s" in the unit of volume used.

 

An example conversion to volumetric units using Standard conditions:

The mass flow meter indicates 100 g/h Air flow.

Density Air (@ 20°C): 1.205 kg/m3

X ls/m Air = 100 g/h / (60 minutes x 1.205 kg/m3)

Flow = 1.38 ls/m Air

 

 

 

Please be aware of the reference conditions when ordering an instrument.  "Normal" and "Standard" can be relative to each customer.  When a customer in the US says his reference conditions are "normal" he may very well mean that they are room temperature and one atmosphere, which could be 20° C and 1 atm (that is normal to him) or even 70°F and 1 atm.  However an instrument ordered at Normal (ln) reference conditions would use reference of 0° C and 1 atm.  Why is this important?  Because mixing up these reference conditions causes an offset in what the customer expects to see by greater than 7%!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laws and Guidelines

Finagle´s Laws of Information

 

1. The information you have is not what you want.

2. The information you want is not what you need.

3. The information you need is not what you can obtain.

4. The information you can obtain costs more than you want to pay.