Man­fred Ja­gi­ella joined En­dress+Haus­er as Man­aging Dir­ect­or at the be­gin­ning of 2007. Since then, he has de­veloped the com­pet­ence centre for li­quid ana­lys­is in­to a sus­tain­ably grow­ing and prof­it­able com­pany. Dur­ing this time, the num­ber of em­ploy­ees has tripled to more than 1,300 world­wide and sales have in­creased even more. En­dress+Haus­er Li­quid Ana­lys­is has won vari­ous in­nov­a­tion prizes and oth­er awards. It has been ranked first in Ger­many sev­er­al times as an ex­em­plary em­ploy­er and was re­cently even hon­oured as one of the best em­ploy­ers world­wide. Since 2016, Man­fred Ja­gi­ella has also been val­ued as a com­mit­ted mem­ber of the Ex­ec­ut­ive Board of the En­dress+Haus­er Group. In Septem­ber of this year, Dr Man­fred Ja­gi­ella will be 65 years old and will then be­gin a new chapter in his life. 

"Dr Man­fred Ja­gi­ella has played a key role in mak­ing En­dress+Haus­er one of the world's lead­ing sup­pli­ers of li­quid ana­lys­is equip­ment," said Dr Peter Seld­ers, CEO of the En­dress+Haus­er Group. "We would like to thank him for his many years of ded­ic­ated ser­vice to our com­pany and his con­tri­bu­tion to the suc­cess of the Group. We wish him all the best and good health for the next phase of his life.

Con­tinu­ation of the suc­cess­ful de­vel­op­ment

His suc­cessor, Dr Thomas Buer, joins En­dress+Haus­er Li­quid Ana­lys­is from Ve­olia Wa­ter Tech­no­lo­gies & Solu­tions. The 55-year-old man­ager stud­ied mech­an­ic­al and pro­cess en­gin­eer­ing at the Tech­nic­al Uni­versity of Aachen and has ex­tens­ive in­ter­na­tion­al ex­per­i­ence in the wa­ter and en­vir­on­ment­al tech­no­logy sec­tor. In pro­fes­sion­al po­s­i­tions in Ger­many, Canada, the USA and France, he has suc­cess­fully man­aged glob­al busi­ness units and ad­vanced in­nov­at­ive tech­no­lo­gies.

"In Dr Thomas Buer, we have found an ex­per­i­enced Man­aging Dir­ect­or for our Li­quid Ana­lys­is Com­pet­ence Centre. His broad ex­pert­ise and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­per­i­ence will help him to fur­ther de­vel­op En­dress+Haus­er Li­quid Ana­lys­is to­geth­er with the proven man­age­ment team," says Dr An­dreas Mayr, COO of the En­dress+Haus­er Group. To en­sure a smooth trans­ition, Thomas Buer will join En­dress+Haus­er on 1 Au­gust 2024.

Man­fred Ja­gi­ella's re­spons­ib­il­it­ies on the Ex­ec­ut­ive Board of the En­dress+Haus­er Group will be as­sumed by oth­er mem­bers of the Ex­ec­ut­ive Board as of Oc­to­ber.
 

The con­struc­tion work at the JUMO SENSILO plant in the Fulda-West Tech­no­logy Park con­tin­ues to make rap­id pro­gress. The next ma­jor step will be the re­lo­ca­tion in Oc­to­ber, as JUMO Man­aging Dir­ect­or Dr. Stef­fen Hoßfeld ex­plained to Fulda's Lord May­or Dr. Heiko Win­gen­feld and City Plan­ning Of­ficer Daniel Schrein­er dur­ing a tour of the site. At 50 mil­lion euros, the new build­ing is the largest in­vest­ment in JUMO's his­tory.

"We are cre­at­ing the fu­ture here, we are cre­at­ing growth", em­phas­ized Hoßfeld. Ac­cord­ing to Hoßfeld, the new build­ing is primar­ily about di­git­al­iz­a­tion, ma­ter­i­al flow op­tim­iz­a­tion, re­duc­tion of cost struc­tures and thus ul­ti­mately about ef­fi­ciency gains in or­der to sur­vive in glob­al com­pet­i­tion. JUMO is build­ing a fact­ory of the fu­ture on a green­field site in Rodges, primar­ily to re­duce unit costs by us­ing state-of-the-art tech­no­logy.

JUMO is still on sched­ule, em­phas­ized project man­ager Stefan Reith. The costs also re­main with­in the planned frame­work. The en­tire team is highly mo­tiv­ated and the in­di­vidu­al trades are work­ing hand in hand, he ex­plained. For this project, the de­cision was made to im­ple­ment in­teg­rated project man­age­ment. The con­struc­tion con­tract­ors are in­teg­rated in­to the project right from the start of the plan­ning phase. This en­sures that every­one in­volved in the project can work out an op­tim­al solu­tion right from the start. "This part­ner­ship-based pro­cess is very in­nov­at­ive, saves costs and pro­tects against po­ten­tial law­suits", says Reith.

Com­mit­ment to the Fulda site

Chris­ti­an Gies, Head of Fa­cil­ity Man­age­ment, was im­pressed by the know-how and ex­pert­ise of the com­pan­ies in­volved. "The trade firms and part­ner com­pan­ies here in the re­gion have enorm­ous ex­pert­ise and years of ex­per­i­ence. This is an­oth­er reas­on for the rap­id con­struc­tion pro­gress so far", em­phas­ized Gies.

"The new JUMO SENSILO plant is a clear com­mit­ment to the Fulda loc­a­tion and strengthens the eco­nom­ic power of the en­tire re­gion", said Fulda's Lord May­or Dr. Heiko Win­gen­feld. City plan­ning of­ficer Daniel Schrein­er praised the good co­oper­a­tion with JUMO: "The pro­cess from plan­ning to im­ple­ment­a­tion with the JUMO con­struc­tion man­agers was char­ac­ter­ized by a high de­gree of re­li­ab­il­ity", said Schrein­er.

Pro­duc­tion area of around 13,000 square meters

JUMO is build­ing a plant for the pro­duc­tion of tem­per­at­ure and pres­sure sensors in the tech­no­logy park with a pro­duc­tion area of around 13,000 square meters. These product areas have re­cently ex­per­i­enced above-av­er­age growth; JUMO also sees great po­ten­tial here in the com­ing years.

JUMO plans to double the pro­duc­tion volume of tem­per­at­ure sensors by 2026 com­pared to 2022, as Dr. Mi­chael Schwander, Head of Pro­duc­tion Tem­per­at­ure Sensor Tech­no­logy, ex­plained. The pro­duc­tion of pres­sure sensors will also be­come sig­ni­fic­antly more ef­fi­cient. "The cur­rent five areas in dif­fer­ent build­ings and floors in Plant 1 will now be con­cen­trated in a single loc­a­tion in the new plant as a res­ult of the move", said Schwander.

Geo­therm­al plant cov­ers peak load

Ac­cord­ing to cur­rent plans, JUMO will com­pletely dis­pense with fossil fuels. A geo­therm­al sys­tem will be used to sup­port the heat­ing sys­tem. This will cov­er the peak load, while the base load will be com­pletely covered by heat re­cov­ery from the pro­duc­tion pro­cesses. The new plant's cool­ing and vent­il­a­tion sys­tems will be op­er­ated primar­ily with self-gen­er­ated elec­tri­city from a photo­vol­ta­ic sys­tem.

A cur­rent study by renowned mar­ket re­search in­sti­tute Om­dia is show­ing that PROFINET is still the lead­ing tech­no­logy in the Eth­er­net pro­tocol field. The study is com­pre­hens­ively ana­lyz­ing cur­rent and fu­ture mar­ket dis­tri­bu­tion and is identi­fy­ing PROFINET as the clear front-run­ner among well-known sys­tems. The de­tails of the study can be ob­tained dir­ectly from Om­dia. PROFINET owes its suc­cess to sev­er­al prin­ciples of tech­no­lo­gic­al de­vel­op­ment which will also en­sure that it has a strong po­s­i­tion in the fu­ture.

The PROFINET spe­cific­a­tion is con­tinu­ally be­ing fur­ther de­veloped based on cus­tom­er re­quire­ments. Fol­low­ing its an­nu­al pub­lic­a­tion sched­ule, PI (PROFIB­US & PROFINET In­ter­na­tion­al) re­cently re­leased the V2.4 MU5 spe­cific­a­tion fol­low­ing ex­tens­ive re­view. This ver­sion in­cludes com­pre­hens­ive se­cur­ity defin­i­tions for PROFINET Se­cur­ity Classes 2 and 3. At the same time, the GSDML and cer­ti­fic­a­tion (the next re­lease of which will be pub­lished soon) are also be­ing con­tinu­ally fur­ther de­veloped. This is cre­at­ing a sol­id basis for de­velopers and is en­sur­ing the safety, se­cur­ity and re­li­ab­il­ity of PROFINET net­works.

PROFINET over APL for pro­cess auto­ma­tion

PROFINET was in­ten­tion­ally de­veloped for the broad­er mar­ket and is be­ing used in a vari­ety of in­dus­tries. As the first avail­able im­ple­ment­a­tion of Eth­er­net APL, PROFINET over APL is ad­van­cing growth in pro­cess auto­ma­tion. It’s also es­tab­lished in the high-end range of mo­tion con­trol. Tried-and-tested IRT tech­no­logy is avail­able in an ever-in­creas­ing num­ber of drives. At the same time, PROFINET is pre­par­ing steps for TSN (Time-Sens­it­ive Net­work­ing) so it can meet the re­quire­ments of the fu­ture. PROFINET’s ar­chi­tec­ture is per­fectly suited to­wards the re­quire­ments of the di­git­al trans­form­a­tion. On the one hand, easy data ac­cess is pos­sible through an open TCP/IP chan­nel or an in­teg­rated PN_Record_Rd/Rw. PROFINET mod­els have been mapped to OPC UA in the mean­time as well.

PROFINET is a cent­ral com­pon­ent of the PI eco­sys­tem. Both tech­nic­ally and or­gan­iz­a­tion­ally, there’s close co­ordin­a­tion with oth­er tech­no­lo­gies, such as IO-Link, SRCI, om­lox, MTP and NOA. Over 800 com­mit­ted mem­bers are act­ive in work­ing groups, in­tens­ively grap­pling with cus­tom­er re­quire­ments. This close co­oper­a­tion en­ables the seam­less in­teg­ra­tion of PROFINET in­to the over­all auto­ma­tion en­vir­on­ment. De­velopers and users alike be­ne­fit from a broad spec­trum of solu­tions and a strong com­munity which ad­vances the fur­ther de­vel­op­ment and suc­cess of PROFINET.
 

SICK and En­dress+Haus­er signed a joint memor­andum of un­der­stand­ing for a stra­tegic part­ner­ship in Oc­to­ber 2023. Since then, the project has been ex­amined and plans for im­ple­ment­ing the co­oper­a­tion have been drawn up. Fol­low­ing ap­prov­al by the re­spect­ive su­per­vis­ory bod­ies, rep­res­ent­at­ives of both com­pan­ies have now signed a cor­res­pond­ing agree­ment. The clos­ing of the trans­ac­tion is planned for the turn of the year 2024/2025 and is sub­ject to ap­prov­al by an­ti­trust au­thor­it­ies.

En­dress+Haus­er takes over world­wide sales and ser­vice

As a key as­pect of the stra­tegic part­ner­ship, En­dress+Haus­er will take over sales and ser­vice for pro­cess ana­lys­is and gas flow meas­ure­ment tech­no­logy com­pletely. Around 800 spe­cial­ized sales and ser­vice em­ploy­ees in 42 coun­tries will trans­fer from SICK to En­dress+Haus­er. Cus­tom­ers will be­ne­fit by re­ceiv­ing more products from a single source. The glob­al En­dress+Haus­er sales net­work will en­able ad­di­tion­al cus­tom­ers to be ac­quired, more in­dus­tries to be reached and new ap­plic­a­tions to be de­veloped.

From 2025, the pro­duc­tion and fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of pro­cess ana­lyz­ers and gas flow­met­ers will be the re­spons­ib­il­ity of a joint ven­ture in which each part­ner will hold a 50 per­cent stake. It will em­ploy about 730 people at sev­er­al loc­a­tions in Ger­many. The joint ven­ture will work closely with En­dress+Haus­er’s com­pet­ence cen­ters to drive product in­nov­a­tions for­ward ef­fi­ciently.

Com­ple­ment­ary of­fer­ings for pro­cess auto­ma­tion

The two com­pan­ies’ of­fer­ings in pro­cess tech­no­logy com­ple­ment each oth­er per­fectly. SICK’s products are cur­rently used in par­tic­u­lar in waste in­cin­er­a­tion plants, power, steel and ce­ment plants, in the oil and gas in­dustry, in chem­ic­al and pet­ro­chem­ic­al plants and in ship­build­ing, for ex­ample for ana­lyz­ing emis­sions in flue gas clean­ing or for meas­ur­ing the flow of nat­ur­al gas and hy­dro­gen.

“This stra­tegic part­ner­ship opens up op­por­tun­it­ies for growth and de­vel­op­ment for SICK and En­dress+Haus­er. We are tak­ing this path be­cause by col­lab­or­at­ing and net­work­ing we can achieve more to­geth­er in a reas­on­able amount of time than either side could on its own – all this for the be­ne­fit of our cus­tom­ers, em­ploy­ees and both com­pan­ies,” says Dr Peter Seld­ers, CEO of the En­dress+Haus­er Group. 

“Our as­pir­a­tion is to drive the sus­tain­able trans­form­a­tion of the pro­cess in­dustry and to sup­port our cus­tom­ers in lever­aging the op­por­tun­it­ies presen­ted by de­car­bon­iz­a­tion. That is why SICK and En­dress+Haus­er are com­bin­ing their tech­no­lo­gic­al and mar­ket ex­pert­ise. In the in­terest of our cus­tom­ers and em­ploy­ees, we look for­ward to the stra­tegic part­ner­ship and to shape the fu­ture of pro­cess auto­ma­tion to­geth­er,” says Dr. Mats Gökstorp, Chair­man of the Ex­ec­ut­ive Board at SICK AG.

Stra­tegic part­ners with many things in com­mon

Both com­pan­ies see the sus­tain­able trans­form­a­tion as a busi­ness op­por­tun­ity. To­geth­er, they want to provide even bet­ter sup­port to cus­tom­ers in im­port­ant areas such as en­ergy and re­source ef­fi­ciency and cli­mate and en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion as well as as­sist­ing with the de­car­bon­iz­a­tion of their pro­duc­tion pro­cesses. SICK and En­dress+Haus­er have worked to­geth­er fre­quently on an or­der, project and cus­tom­er basis. The two fam­ily-owned com­pan­ies also share a long-term cor­por­ate ap­proach.

En­dress+Haus­er and SICK are com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing at­tract­ive work­ing con­di­tions for all em­ploy­ees. “We look for­ward to wel­com­ing the new col­leagues with their valu­able ex­pert­ise to the En­dress+Haus­er team. The planned trans­ition will be care­fully pre­pared so that we can con­tin­ue to grow to­geth­er from day one,” says Peter Seld­ers. 

Fact­ory and lo­gist­ics auto­ma­tion busi­ness not af­fected 

SICK is one of the world’s lead­ing solu­tion pro­viders for sensor-based ap­plic­a­tions in the in­dus­tri­al sec­tor. With 60 sub­si­di­ar­ies and share­hold­ings as well as nu­mer­ous agen­cies, SICK main­tains a pres­ence around the globe. The com­pany has over 12,000 em­ploy­ees world­wide and gen­er­ated con­sol­id­ated sales of 2.3 bil­lion euros in the 2023 fin­an­cial year. The core busi­ness of fact­ory and lo­gist­ics auto­ma­tion, which ac­counts for more than 80 per­cent of sales, will not be af­fected by the part­ner­ship.

Both sides are cur­rently work­ing with high pri­or­ity to en­sure a seam­less trans­ition of the busi­ness at the turn of the year. Un­til the clos­ing, SICK and En­dress+Haus­er will con­tin­ue to sup­port their pro­cess auto­ma­tion cus­tom­ers in­de­pend­ently.
 

These market challenges mean that the industry must – and is – looking to pivot towards more agile operations and to do so must undergo a level of transformation. Integral to this transformation will be a plant’s process automation system. Large-scale automation systems have been at the heart of production line control for decades. They’re paramount to ensuring safety and security of operations and driving efficiency, productivity, and accuracy. 

Likewise, through new advances in plug and produce modular automation architecture, process automation will support plants to become more agile and adaptable to changing market demands. Modular process automation will be central to enabling simpler, faster and more flexible production, while also supporting the integration and adoption of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technology and the Industry 4.0 concept. 

How modular automation enables agility 

For Chemical plants to achieve the level of agility required to meet shorter ‘time to market’ timeframes, among other things, operators are rightly demanding process automation solutions that are more open, interoperable, flexible and evolvable. All without sacrificing reliability, availability, safety and security. 

To this end, plug and produce modular automation is taking centre stage. Modular automation refers to an industry-wide effort to move from the engineering of monolithic, strongly intertwined automation systems for the complete production plant, to assembling more flexible, service-oriented modules designed to “plug and produce.”  

It breaks down the production process into discrete, self-contained modules that can each be easily connected (plugged) into the larger system and begin operating (producing) with minimal setup and configuration. This separates automation into an evergreen robust core served by a modular architecture, prioritizing real-time response, with an extended, digitally enabled environment that securely connects to IIoT and Industry 4.0 technologies to enhance the collaboration of people, systems and equipment.

Importantly, modularity allows for rapid reconfiguration, upgrades, and integration of new technologies to deliver market demands as soon as they emerge. Because process controller and application software are containerized functional entities, independent of system hardware, they can be flexibly deployed and dynamically available across purpose-built and industrial automation systems, edge devices, on-premises servers and cloud platforms. The Distributed Control Systems (DCS) will evolve to an orchestration system that manages the operation of the modular units. 

All this helps operators more easily increase or decrease or adapt production capacity, based on market demand, as they can simply ‘plug and play,’ the necessary modularised automated systems as and when needed.

Modular-enabled automation & Industry 4.0

Plug and produce modular automation is a powerful catalyst for embracing IIoT and Industry 4.0 in all process industries, including Chemicals. A significant challenge however is the lack of standardization and interoperability among various systems and devices. 

Modular automation addresses this by adhering to open standards and protocols, ensuring different modules and IIoT devices can communicate effectively. This interoperability reduces the complexity of system integration and enables a more straightforward implementation of advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. In essence, a cohesive network of interconnected components can be created. 

Such an ecosystem will enable faster adoption of new and innovative offerings, while existing applications can be moved to a virtualized, digitally native environment, where advanced cybersecurity tools can be deployed. 

Industries can then reap one of the biggest promises of IIoT and Industry 4.0: data analytics. Through the network a vast amount of data can be collected and processed with AI-enabled analytics to gain valuable insights for better decision-making, process optimisation, enhanced safety, and improved overall efficiency. Using modular automation, this can be done without disturbing core control operations. 

Considering on average a plant uses approximately less than 20% of the data it generates, harnessing the rest can be transformative for productivity gains and optimisation. In fact, McKinsey & Company estimate that a chemical company with 150 sites, and 10 to 100 processes to optimize could have 1,500 to 15,000 opportunities whose recurring annual cost savings could range from €50 million to €500 million (https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/buried-treasure-advanced-analytics-in-process-industries).

This data can also help operators deliver faster process implementation and capacity scaling, along with speedier product changeovers to better meet market needs. 

The benefits of modular-enabled automation for chemical plants

Although investments into modular process automation systems can be significant, throughout the lifecycle of a chemical plant it can lead to notable cost savings and, in various ways, increase productivity and revenue.

For starters, it can give operators an edge over their competitors. Time to Market is now one of the most important distinguishers between the success and failure of new products. By harnessing the flexibility of modular automation, and the operational intelligence enabled by IIoT, operators can bring their customers product to market the fastest. A simple but important competitor differentiator. It will also help companies leverage new business models and provide news services to their customers, with the support of digital capabilities that can be easily subscribed to when needed. Such choice and adaptability are paramount in a fast-changing world that is susceptible to macroeconomic shocks.

This emerging automation landscape can also help operators achieve their sustainability targets. For example, cloud-hosted continuous emission data analytics solutions can monitor the carbon footprint of a process plant at a granular level and in real time. This will aid plant ESG regulatory compliance. In addition, to lower their environmental impact, AI and data analytics can reconfigure energy inputs and outputs to reduce waste and manage onsite renewable energy and battery-storage investments.

Beyond this, the technologies will usher in a new way of working that is particularly attractive to the workforce of the future. Machine learning and AI will help to identify and mitigate production interruptions, and support remote, autonomous operations, with repetitive and time-consuming tasks automated. This means workers will spend less time troubleshooting and working in physical environments and more time addressing issues remotely. This will lessen the impact of skills shortages and help chemical plants attract a new generation of workers less inclined to take roles in remote locations – and who also expect to work with more modern tools. 

What’s more, modular automation systems enhance safety by providing precise control and monitoring capabilities. Real-time data from IoT sensors can be used to detect anomalies and trigger immediate responses, preventing accidents of hazardous waste and ensuring a safer working environment. 

Lastly, in the commissioning phase, there is a basic assumption within the industry that the overall engineering effort and cost to build new production sites can be reduced by up to 50% with modular plug and play systems.

Today modular automation is being used in process industries on a small scale, but it’s at the tipping point of much wider adoption. There are challenges, such as skills and knowledge gaps and a need for more standards in equipment and automation and service models, but nevertheless operators can start small with the view to scaling up. 

For certain, the future of chemical manufacturing lies in the continued integration of plug and produce modular automation with IIoT and Industry 4.0 technologies. And as advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data analytics continue to evolve, modular automation systems will become even more intelligent and autonomous – providing even greater gains. 

Author: Axel Haller, Global Industry Business Manager for Chemicals and Life Sciences at ABB.
 

In haz­ard­ous areas, even small er­rors in routine tasks can pose sig­ni­fic­ant risks. A simple mix-up can res­ult in ex­tens­ive dam­age to equip­ment and to the en­vir­on­ment, pro­duc­tion down­times, and even haz­ards for em­ploy­ees. The use of RFID tech­no­logy elim­in­ates sources of hu­man er­ror and not only im­proves safety, but also saves time.

Avoid­ing risks and down­time 

In the pro­cess in­dustry, pump­able sub­stances are trans­por­ted by truck, train, or ship to stor­age tanks or plant com­pon­ents, of­ten via long pip­ing sys­tems and trans­ferred in so-called coup­ling sta­tions. Er­rors must be avoided here to en­sure qual­ity and safety. In­cor­rect con­nec­tions can lead to re­jects, pro­duc­tion down­time and high costs, while ac­ci­dents and per­son­al in­jury are po­ten­tial risks.

The IPH-30GM-Ex and IQH1-30GM-Ex RFID read/write devices en­able re­li­able check­ing of con­nec­tions and seam­less trace­ab­il­ity without ad­di­tion­al time ex­pendit­ure. In­teg­rated in­to the con­trol tech­no­logy, they de­tect faults at an early stage and pre­vent fail­ures.They also of­fer an ef­fi­cient solu­tion for identi­fy­ing sample con­tain­ers, which saves time and im­proves qual­ity as­sur­ance. RFID Solu­tions for LF (125 kHz), HF (13.56 MHz), and UHF (860–960 MHz) are avail­able. The solu­tions in the UHF range, such as the IUH-F190-V1-FR1-01-Ex GUBW1, are also avail­able for iden­ti­fic­a­tion over longer dis­tances.
 

Red Li­on® is pleased to an­nounce the launch of the N-Tron® NT116 un­man­aged in­dus­tri­al Eth­er­net switch. The NT116 is de­signed for in­dus­tri­al ap­plic­a­tions that re­quire re­li­able per­form­ance for mis­sion-crit­ic­al ap­plic­a­tions in harsh en­vir­on­ments. The NT116 un­man­aged switch provides ex­cep­tion­al re­li­ab­il­ity and per­form­ance for data ac­quis­i­tion, Eth­er­net I/O and pro­cess con­trol. Housed in a rugged in­dus­tri­al met­al en­clos­ure, the unit is com­pact in size and fea­tures 16 high-per­form­ance cop­per ports (10/100BaseTX RJ45). The NT116 of­fers high shock and vi­bra­tion tol­er­ance. All ports have built-in ESD and surge pro­tec­tion. Users be­ne­fit from an ex­cep­tion­al MT­BF rat­ing of 1.2 mil­lion hours. All this in a slim, space-sav­ing design that op­er­ates from -40°C to 85°C. 

For ro­bust net­work sup­port 

The NT116 sup­ports full wire speed com­mu­nic­a­tions with up to 3.2Gb/s through­put. It uses store-and-for­ward tech­no­logy and sup­ports full and half-du­plex op­er­a­tion. Two 10-49 VDC power in­puts are provided for re­dund­ancy.

In ad­di­tion to IEEE 802.3 com­pli­ance and mar­ine, rail­way and rolling stock cer­ti­fic­a­tions, the new switch has UL Or­din­ary and Haz­ard­ous loc­a­tions as well as ATEX and IECEx cer­ti­fic­a­tions. The new switch makes it easi­er to col­lect crit­ic­al per­form­ance data. Its rugged and hardened design provides the dur­ab­il­ity and re­li­ab­il­ity needed to with­stand the ex­treme con­di­tions found in con­trol net­works on the fact­ory floor and in ap­plic­a­tions such as oil and gas, util­it­ies, waste wa­ter treat­ment, al­tern­at­ive en­ergy, rail­ways, in­tel­li­gent traffic con­trol and trans­port­a­tion.

Moore In­dus­tries has re­leased a sig­ni­fic­ant product up­date to the TCS Tem­per­at­ure Con­cen­trat­or Sys­tem. Ori­gin­ally the TCS con­sisted of the TCM Tem­per­at­ure Con­cen­trat­or Mod­ule and the HMC HART® -to-MOD­BUS RTU Con­vert­er, which work to­geth­er to re­duce the cost of trans­mit­ting mul­tiple tem­per­at­ure sensor meas­ure­ments in both gen­er­al-pur­pose and haz­ard­ous area ap­plic­a­tions by con­cen­trat­ing and trans­mit­ting up to 32 sig­nals over one MOD­BUS RTU based net­work.

The latest product up­date to the TCS en­ables a HES HART-to-Eth­er­net Gate­way Sys­tem to be used with the 16-chan­nel TCM Tem­per­at­ure Con­cen­trat­or Mod­ules, al­low­ing for Eth­er­net-based com­mu­nic­a­tion with the TCS. The HES is avail­able in a single-chan­nel or 4-chan­nel mod­el and can con­nect with up to two TCMs per chan­nel, al­low­ing up to eight TCMs to com­mu­nic­ate with one HES. This al­lows 128 dif­fer­ent tem­per­at­ure sig­nals to flow over an Eth­er­net link from the field to a MOD­BUS/TCP-based host. Ad­di­tion­ally, these tem­per­at­ure read­ings can be read by a HART-IP-based host or viewed with any off-the-shelf web browser since the HES in­cludes an em­bed­ded web serv­er. Un­like the HMC, the HES can com­mu­nic­ate with up to six­teen HART devices per chan­nel. Each 16-chan­nel TCM is con­sidered one HART device, so if two TCMs are con­nec­ted on a par­tic­u­lar HES chan­nel, 14 ad­di­tion­al HART devices can still be con­nec­ted to the chan­nel along with the TCMs.

In­creased through­put

The TCM Tem­per­at­ure Con­cen­trat­or Mod­ule con­verts its sig­nal in­puts to stand­ard HART pro­tocol, which al­lows the HES to poll each TCM us­ing a device-spe­cif­ic HART com­mand. This device-spe­cif­ic com­mand en­ables the TCM to send all 16 chan­nel val­ues in one HART mes­sage pack­et, thus in­creas­ing through­put and re­sponse time.

The TCS sys­tem sig­ni­fic­antly re­duces the cost of trans­mit­ting mul­tiple tem­per­at­ure sensor meas­ure­ments in both gen­er­al-pur­pose and haz­ard­ous areas. TCM mod­ule, equipped with 16 I/O chan­nels, can be con­figured for vari­ous in­put types and con­verts them to the HART® di­git­al pro­tocol for long-dis­tance trans­mis­sion to a HES, HCS, or HART-based host. The TCS Tem­per­at­ure Con­cen­trat­or Sys­tem sup­ports HART, MOD­BUS RTU, MOD­BUS/TCP, and HART-IP com­mu­nic­a­tions, al­low­ing seam­less in­teg­ra­tion with vari­ous mon­it­or­ing and con­trol sys­tems. It is in­trins­ic­ally safe ap­proved for use in haz­ard­ous areas and en­ables cost-ef­fect­ive in­stall­a­tion by min­im­iz­ing the need for ded­ic­ated trans­mit­ters and wir­ing.
 

In many meas­ure­ment ap­plic­a­tions, pH sensors are ex­posed to con­tam­in­a­tion, cor­ro­sion and ab­ra­sion. To en­sure func­tion­al­ity, the sensors must be cleaned reg­u­larly. However, in many ap­plic­a­tions, a fully auto­mated sensor main­ten­ance sys­tem has not yet been eco­nom­ic­al.

Mod­u­lar auto­mat­ic sensor clean­ing

With the Uni­clean 700 series, Knick in­tro­duces a mod­u­lar con­trol sys­tem that can be in­stalled very quickly and cost-ef­fect­ively as a flex­ible entry-level solu­tion for auto­mated sensor clean­ing. With its in­nov­at­ive concept and fo­cused func­tion­al­ity, the Uni­clean 700 com­ple­ments the port­fo­lio of Uni­clean 900 and Unic­al 9000 con­trol­lers, which are used in Knick's es­tab­lished cCare sys­tem for fully auto­mated clean­ing and cal­ib­ra­tion.

Flex­ible con­fig­ur­a­tion 

The mod­u­lar design of the in­di­vidu­al com­pon­ents gives the cus­tom­er a high de­gree of flex­ib­il­ity. However, the com­pact design makes in­stall­a­tion very easy. With the Uni­clean 700 con­trol sys­tems, Knick of­fers the user a flex­ible and ex­pand­able solu­tion that is suit­able for use with both stat­ic and re­tract­able valves. The valves can be op­er­ated pneu­mat­ic­ally or, in the near fu­ture, hy­draul­ic­ally.

The cost-ef­fect­ive solu­tion is used in waste wa­ter treat­ment plants and in the met­al pro­cessing in­dustry. This is where heavy soil­ing and high sensor wear are en­countered. The Uni­clean 700 series also ex­cels in the food in­dustry. In sug­ar factor­ies, for ex­ample, sensors of­ten be­come en­crus­ted.

Entry-level solu­tion for pH sensors

With the new series, Knick of­fers an entry-level sys­tem for auto­mat­ic clean­ing of pH sensors, which is valu­able in many in­dus­tries. Un­like the Uni­clean 900, the Uni­clean 700 mod­els do not re­quire the spe­cial con­trol pro­gramme in the Pro­tos trans­mit­ter. The clean­ing pro­cess can be triggered by a simple switch­ing sig­nal, such as the re­lay con­tact of a Stra­tos Multi and Pro­tos II, or by a simple push-but­ton. The Uni­clean 700 series also works with third party trans­mit­ters or fit­tings.

The mod­u­lar design al­lows for easy con­ver­sions when needed. This means that clean­ing con­trol sys­tems can be quickly ad­ap­ted to pro­cess changes.

Used com­pon­ents can be re­used and valves, for ex­ample, can be re­placed quickly and eas­ily. All ne­ces­sary parts are avail­able sep­ar­ately so that the fi­nal con­fig­ur­a­tion of the Uni­clean 710 and 720 can be car­ried out on site. The Uni­clean 730 is sup­plied fully as­sembled and ready to use.
 

“Let the data do the work” is one of the core mes­sages from the 2024 Han­nov­er Messe – one of the world’s biggest and most in­flu­en­tial in­dus­tri­al trade shows. Ap­ply­ing this slo­gan to pro­cess auto­ma­tion (PA) raises the ques­tion of how hun­dreds or even thou­sands of para­met­ers from com­plex field devices can be com­mu­nic­ated to the right places. And how can these data “do the work” for us? 

There’s plenty of po­ten­tial: data from PA sys­tems can be in­ter­preted – either by ex­per­i­enced spe­cial­ists or, look­ing to the fu­ture, with ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) – and used as in­put for de­cisions about op­tim­iz­a­tion. These might in­volve pro­cess modi­fic­a­tions to make pro­duc­tion more en­ergy- or re­source-ef­fi­cient, or in­ter­ven­tions to op­tim­ize product qual­ity. Plant avail­ab­il­ity can also be in­creased by means of pre­dict­ive main­ten­ance (PM). By com­bin­ing data mod­els with prob­ab­il­it­ies, devices can be re­placed pro­act­ively rather than re­ly­ing on re­act­ive troubleshoot­ing.

The status quo isn’t fit for pur­pose

Even as we ad­mire the vis­ion of op­tim­ized pro­duc­tion based on ef­fect­ive data col­lec­tion right in­to the field, we nat­ur­ally need to re­view the cur­rent situ­ation in pro­cess man­u­fac­tur­ing. And even today, the vast ma­jor­ity of pro­cess sys­tems are built along ana­log 4–20 mA lines. Di­git­al in­roads here were first made in the 1990s with the HART pro­tocol, which over­lays the ana­log power sig­nal. Sup­ple­ment­ing ana­log sig­nal pro­cessing, this made di­git­al com­mu­nic­a­tion pos­sible at speeds of 1.2 kB/s. This was fol­lowed by the first di­git­al field­buses with in­trins­ic safety, such as PROFIB­US PA and FOUND­A­TION Field­bus (FF), which mul­ti­plied the­or­et­ic­al through­put to and from the field device to 31.2 kB/s. 

Speeds are still very much lim­ited even with field­buses, however. Net­work gate­ways (e.g. PROFINET to PROFIB­US PA) also re­quire the use of a proxy, which it­self mul­ti­plies the ef­fort re­quired for device in­teg­ra­tion, in­stall­a­tion and main­ten­ance. Last but by no means least, ini­tial con­cerns are now emer­ging about the long-term avail­ab­il­ity of cur­rent field bus devices. With PROFIB­US PA still lack­ing suf­fi­cient mar­ket pen­et­ra­tion, for ex­ample, Eth­er­net-APL is now be­ing seen as its lo­gic­al and more prom­ising suc­cessor.

Max­im­iz­ing per­form­ance with tech stack in­teg­ra­tion

Eth­er­net-APL has been spe­cially de­veloped for the pro­cess auto­ma­tion mar­ket, with a strong fo­cus on the in­trins­ic­ally safe sup­ply of power to devices in Ex zones and at trans­mis­sion speeds of 10 MB/s. Aside from trans­mis­sion speeds alone, Eth­er­net-APL makes things much more stream­lined by al­low­ing com­mu­nic­a­tion to be handled solely via level 2 Eth­er­net-APL switches from the field device to the ap­plic­a­tion without re­quir­ing ad­di­tion­al gate­ways. This prin­ciple of seam­less com­mu­nic­a­tion has been lack­ing with di­git­al field­buses to date. With these field­buses, the proxy func­tion­al­ity de­scribed above will still be needed as a mi­gra­tion path­way for the trans­ition to Eth­er­net-APL, however, one ex­ample be­ing brown­field ap­plic­a­tions that use PROFIB­US PA. 

This proxy func­tion­al­ity has been in­teg­rated in­to the aplSwitch Field PA from Soft­ing In­dus­tri­al, which has drawn on its long-stand­ing ex­pert­ise in gate­ways to achieve this im­ple­ment­a­tion. In the case of the pnGate PA, for ex­ample, the proxy func­tion­al­ity that in­ter­faces PROFINET with PROFIB­US PA is a proven solu­tion that has now been ad­ap­ted for use in the aplSwitch Field PA product.  

With the aplSwitch Field PA, users can now ef­fort­lessly com­bine PROFIB­US PA and Eth­er­net-APL field devices in the net­work. This be­comes im­port­ant if the APL devices needed to en­sure full plant func­tion­al­ity are not yet avail­able or in cases where ex­ist­ing PROFIB­US-PA in­fra­struc­ture is planned to be re­used. For Eth­er­net-APL-only con­nectiv­ity without PROFIB­US PA, the aplSwitch Field is also avail­able without proxy func­tion­al­ity.

As men­tioned above, the phys­ic­al prop­er­ties of Eth­er­net-APL provide the ne­ces­sary found­a­tion. The com­pre­hens­ive in­teg­ra­tion of the en­tire tech stack – such as sup­port for high­er-level pro­to­cols like PROFINET and Eth­er­net/IP as well as FDI com­pat­ib­il­ity – is ne­ces­sary, however, to fully ex­ploit the full spec­trum of be­ne­fits offered by Eth­er­net-APL:

• Quick in­stall­a­tion and para­met­er set­ting
• Com­pre­hens­ive dia­gnost­ic op­tions
• Rap­id re­sponse to un­fore­see­able events
• Re­li­able and auto­mated log­ging 
• Simple field device swap-out 
• Easy ac­cess to all field device data
• Long-term equip­ment avail­ab­il­ity 

As an ex­pert for PROFINET and com­mu­nic­a­tions tech­no­lo­gies, Soft­ing has spent many years build­ing up a com­pre­hens­ive skill­set in this area of the tech stack.

Why the time is right for mov­ing to Eth­er­net-APL

For any new tech­no­logy, its suc­cess de­pends on devices and in­fra­struc­ture com­pon­ents be­ing avail­able in suf­fi­cient quant­it­ies – and ideally, from mul­tiple man­u­fac­tur­ers. In 2024, this turn­ing point has now been reached for Eth­er­net-APL, as has been con­firmed by sur­veys of in­fra­struc­ture com­pon­ent and field device makers. In re­cent years, plug­fests and con­form­ity test­ing plus pi­lot projects with many end users have shown that the in­fra­struc­ture and field device ele­ments of vari­ous man­u­fac­tur­ers work well to­geth­er. Users can now choose from a broad range of products with second-source op­tions and can also rely on com­pon­ent in­ter­op­er­ab­il­ity. In par­al­lel, spe­cif­ic ana­lyses of cur­rent use cases are also now un­der­way with the aim of pre­par­ing real­ist­ic es­tim­ates of com­mer­cial be­ne­fits and so clearly set­ting out the ad­ded value that is offered by Eth­er­net-APL.

A found­a­tion for ef­fi­ciency gains and in­nov­a­tion 

As a gen­er­al rule, the abil­ity to trans­mit rel­ev­ant field device data at high speed to up­stream ap­plic­a­tions or the cloud cre­ates the basis that is needed for ef­fect­ive pro­cess plant op­tim­iz­a­tions. The large volume of avail­able data plus light­ning-fast com­mu­nic­a­tion between field and ap­plic­a­tions as far as the cloud cre­ates new busi­ness mod­els like pre­dict­ive main­ten­ance while lay­ing the ground­work for new, AI-based learn­ing mod­els go­ing for­ward. Eth­er­net-APL of­fers an out­stand­ing basis to work with here. When com­bined with a tech stack, this charts a course to achiev­ing meas­ur­able be­ne­fits for all pro­cess auto­ma­tion stake­hold­ers, both now and in the fu­ture.

Au­thor: Chris­toph Adam, Head Of Product Man­age­ment Mu­nich, Soft­ing In­dus­tri­al Auto­ma­tion GmbH
 

Turck is expanding its BL20 I/O system with 3-phase energy measurement modules for 1 A and 5 A current transformers to create a comprehensive energy management solution. The modules enable continuous monitoring of the energy consumption of single-phase or three-phase systems and allow easy integration into existing systems via multiprotocol Ethernet (Profinet, EtherNet/IP, Modbus TCP), EtherCAT, OPC-UA or MQTT. The solution can also be expanded with analog and IO-Link sensors to provide additional options for data acquisition and analysis.

For a wide range of applications

By analyzing the energy data directly in Codesys, users gain immediate insight into their energy efficiency and can take appropriate measures to optimize it. The transparent presentation of energy data via clear dashboards, locally or in the cloud, enables users to effectively monitor their energy consumption data anytime and anywhere. The energy measurement modules with IP20 protection are suitable for a wide range of industrial applications in many sectors, including mechanical engineering, the automotive industry, logistics, packaging, food and beverages and the chemical industry.
 

With the SMF magnetic-inductive flow meter, ifm offers an pertinent solution for the hygienic flow measurement of media presenting variable flow rates through the pipe, such as beer, milk or fruit juice. It goes without saying that the high standards of the food industry are also met. In these environments cleaning processes involving the use of chemicals, rapid temperature changes and hot steam cleaning requiring a minimum temperature of 121°C throughout the entire process, pose significant challenges. What is more, the technology in these environments must be able to withstand vibration and shock without any problems when meters are installed directly behind a pump in the process. The use of magnetic-inductive flow meters, which do not require any mechanical components in the medium and offer a very high level of accuracy for a wide range of different media, has been established for several years to meet these requirements. Covering the multitude of demands, the SM Foodmag magnetic-inductive flow meter easily overcomes all challenges and enables hygienic flow measurement in the food industry.

Multiple parameters in one device

The SM Foodmag offers the measurement of several parameters in one device: flow, total quantity, temperature and conductivity are recorded and output. It also detects whether the measuring pipe is completely filled. There will be a version of the meter with a display and one without a display. ifm relies on an app-based menu and an innovative capacitive pushbutton concept in the sensor, making parameter setting much easier and faster. Compared to touch displays, this concept has no weak points, even when exposed to moisture or when operated with gloves. The user is additionally supported by an installation guide, which is optionally available in the menu. An LED ring indicates the device status as well as any faults or maintenance requirements.

While many flow sensors for the food industry have separate connection cables for power supply and signal transmission, the SM Foodmag is much easier to install with just one connection cable. This reduced wiring complexity also translates into cost savings during installation. In terms of mechanical integration, the manufacturer has taken care to ensure a smooth installation. The SM Foodmag will be available in nominal widths from DN15 to DN150. Standardised process connections, such as weld-in adapters to EN10357, DIN11851 pipe fittings, SMS 1145 fittings, DIN32676 Series A clamp connections and DIN 11864-2 aseptic flanges, ensure the necessary compatibility. ifm also supplies different sealing materials depending on the application and the required approvals. The sensor can communicate via IO-Link, analogue signal 4...20 mA or pulse signal.
 

Bat­tery man­u­fac­ture is a del­ic­ate pro­cess per­formed in a highly con­trolled, ul­tra-low hu­mid­ity en­vir­on­ment. Stable, ac­cur­ate, fast-re­sponse dew point probes are there­fore an es­sen­tial com­pon­ent of con­trol sys­tems that help im­prove safety, yields and en­ergy ef­fi­ciency.

The mid­stream stage of bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ing in­volves elec­trode pro­duc­tion, cell as­sembly, and cell fi­nal­iz­a­tion. It is dur­ing these steps – in dry rooms, dry booths, and glove boxes – that hu­mid­ity con­trol is es­pe­cially im­port­ant to pre­vent un­wanted re­ac­tions. These in­clude lith­i­um form­ing lith­i­um hy­drox­ide and hy­dro­gen gas, lith­i­um salt form­ing hy­dro­gen flu­or­ide (HF), and elec­tro­lyte gen­er­at­ing cor­ros­ive byproducts. Ef­fi­cient and ef­fect­ive dry­ing en­sures:

• pro­tec­tion of people and ma­ter­i­als, be­cause the chem­ic­als used are sens­it­ive to mois­ture and present an ex­plo­sion risk if ex­posed to el­ev­ated mois­ture levels 
• yield max­im­iz­a­tion whilst main­tain­ing product qual­ity, be­cause ex­cess­ive mois­ture neg­at­ively im­pacts the qual­ity and there­fore the life­time of bat­ter­ies
• en­ergy op­tim­iz­a­tion by main­tain­ing dry room am­bi­ent dry­ness at op­tim­al levels. This avoids over-dry­ing and un­der-dry­ing, both of which are ex­tremely costly

Dew point meas­ure­ment in sol­id state bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ing 

The am­bi­ent dew point tem­per­at­ure in dry rooms is typ­ic­ally main­tained with­in the range from -30°C to -40 °C, and these low hu­mid­ity levels are con­trolled by high-end dry­ers. This is one of the most en­ergy-in­tens­ive parts of the bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­cess, so min­im­iz­ing over-dry­ing is key to the plant’s over­all en­ergy ef­fi­ciency. 

The dew point sensors in the dry­er need to be highly re­spons­ive to con­trol the dry­er quickly and ac­cur­ately, but it is im­port­ant to note that sensor ac­cur­acy is not the only factor af­fect­ing dry­ing ef­fi­ciency. A probe with a fast re­sponse time, and without the com­plex in­tern­al meas­ure­ment con­trol loops of some ana­lyz­ers, makes all the dif­fer­ence in dry­er and over­all dry room con­trol. The volume of air be­ing dried and pushed through the pro­cess is very large, so en­ergy con­sump­tion can eas­ily skyrock­et if the dry­ing pro­cess is not op­tim­ized.

New­er tech­no­lo­gies such as all sol­id-state bat­ter­ies may re­quire drier con­di­tions with the dew point tem­per­at­ure as low as -80 °C in in­di­vidu­al pro­cessing steps. Typ­ic­ally, these steps are per­formed in­side dry booths or glove boxes be­cause it is not usu­ally eco­nom­ic­ally vi­able to dry the whole dry room to the same ex­tremely low dew point level. Hu­mid­ity levels in dry booths and glove boxes are there­fore mon­itored at crit­ic­al points. 

Today, the most com­monly used meas­ure­ment device for dry­er mon­it­or­ing and con­trol is a dew point sensor based on thin-film poly­mer tech­no­logy. Pre­vi­ous in­stru­ment­a­tion suffered from drift, es­pe­cially at low hu­mid­ity levels, but the de­vel­op­ment of Vais­ala’s DRY­CAP® tech­no­logy has en­abled ac­cur­ate, stable, and fast-re­sponse dew point meas­ure­ment with min­im­um drift. 

Main­tain­ing ac­cur­acy in dew point sensors

Bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ers use large num­bers of sensors throughout their pro­cesses to meas­ure, mon­it­or and con­trol hu­mid­ity levels. The cost of these sensors is neg­li­gible in com­par­is­on with the value of the as­sets and products that they pro­tect. Nev­er­the­less, it is vi­tally im­port­ant that sensors are ac­cur­ate and stable in the long-term, so it is im­port­ant to se­lect the right sensors, and to im­ple­ment an ef­fect­ive pro­gram of cal­ib­ra­tion checks.

A key factor in choos­ing dew point sensors is the avail­ab­il­ity of proven re­li­ab­il­ity. This means that the pro­viders of sensors should be able to demon­strate long-term ac­cur­acy and sta­bil­ity over many years, and in a wide vari­ety of chan­ging en­vir­on­ments.

All sensors may de­liv­er meas­ure­ment res­ults out­side of ac­cept­able lim­its for a num­ber of reas­ons that may not be im­me­di­ately ap­par­ent. The most im­port­ant func­tion of cal­ib­ra­tion is there­fore to check res­ults against a known stand­ard. However, all meas­ure­ment devices drift over time to a great­er or less­er de­gree, so en­sur­ing these sensors are prop­erly cal­ib­rated at ap­pro­pri­ate in­ter­vals is es­sen­tial if their read­ings are to be re­li­able in the long term.

The dew point sensors used in the mid­stream pro­cesses of bat­tery pro­duc­tion are sens­it­ive and highly ac­cur­ate in­stru­ments, but cal­ib­ra­tion is ne­ces­sary for more than just the avoid­ance of drift. For ex­ample, the ac­cur­acy of sensors can be com­prom­ised by phys­ic­al dam­age or oth­er en­vir­on­ment­al factors.

Cal­ib­ra­tion pro­grams for dew point sensors

A vari­ety of cal­ib­ra­tion op­tions ex­ist for dew point sensors at bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­it­ies. Hand­held devices are avail­able for quick and con­veni­ent spot-check­ing and on-site cal­ib­ra­tion. The ad­vant­age of this meth­od is that probes do not need to be re­moved from the pro­cess and down­time can be kept to a min­im­um. In ad­di­tion, some devices, such as Vais­ala’s Indigo80, can be used as a ref­er­ence probe and sent for fact­ory cal­ib­ra­tion com­plete with a cer­ti­fic­ate for full cal­ib­ra­tion trace­ab­il­ity.

Some sensor man­u­fac­tur­ers op­er­ate ac­cred­ited ser­vice centres to which swapped-out sensors can be sent for routine cal­ib­ra­tion checks. Al­tern­at­ively, many bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ers find it more con­veni­ent and eco­nom­ic­al to con­tract their sensor sup­pli­er to provide a fixed price cal­ib­ra­tion pro­gram.

Sum­mary

The pur­pose of this art­icle is to high­light the po­ten­tially ser­i­ous im­plic­a­tions of fail­ing to im­ple­ment an ef­fect­ive hu­mid­ity meas­ure­ment pro­gram in bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ing plants. Dew point sensors per­form a crit­ic­ally im­port­ant role, so it is vi­tally im­port­ant to in­stall the right sensors and to en­sure that they de­liv­er stable, long-term ac­cur­acy and re­li­ab­il­ity. To achieve this, no mat­ter which sensor is de­ployed, an ef­fect­ive cal­ib­ra­tion routine is es­sen­tial for the ef­fi­cient, sus­tain­able op­er­a­tion of the plant; pro­tect­ing safety, en­ergy ef­fi­ciency and bat­tery product qual­ity.

Au­thor: Antti Viitan­en, Product Man­age­ment Vais­ala 
 

The measurement of low flow is becoming widely used in many industries. However, the smaller the flow, the trickier it is to control and measure, and finding a suitable flow measuring technology at reasonable cost can prove challenging for both users and flow sensor manufacturers.

There is no set definition for ‘low flow’ in terms of measurement limits for fluidics handling. However, low-flow applications encounter amplified flow stability and performance issues not seen in larger flows. The minimal liquid volume being measured in low flows renders them highly sensitive, such that even the slightest disruptions in process or ambient conditions can exert a substantial impact on flow stability. Within the markets Titan Enterprises operates in, we consider low flow rates as those below 50 ml/min, with many customers seeking flow rates of between 2 and 20 ml/min.

Transport of concentrated liquids boosts increased need for measurement solutions 

Neil Hannay, Titan’s Senior R&D Engineer observes: “We are certainly seeing an increase in demand for low flow measurement technologies driven by various industries moving towards transporting heavily concentrated liquids, which are then diluted at the point of use. This translates into huge savings on transport and storage costs and also has a positive environmental impact.”

Whether cleaning fluid additives, syrups and flavourings for beer or soda, chemical additives for oil and fuel, paint pigments or administering drugs, low flow flowmeters are required to dose these concentrated fluids at the end process, dispensing the precise amount of liquid to the correct dilution.   

As mentioned, measuring low flow is a challenging application to satisfy. The amount of energy available in low liquid flow is unlikely to be sufficient to drive most mechanical flowmeters to give linear results. By comparison, electronic flow meters can be limited by sensitivity, zero drift and slow response times. Here we analyse 5 types of flow meter - Ultrasonic, Turbine, Oval Gear, Thermal and Coriolis - and their suitability for low flow measurement: 

Ultrasonic 

Ultrasonic flowmeters measure the velocity of flow. Titan's in-line Atrato© models, using patented time of flight technology, are capable of measuring flows down to 2ml/min. Lower flow rates equate to smaller signals to determine flow rate and as such, this lower signal strength can affect the flowmeter’s capability to produce repeatable measurement results.
Design challenge: Straight-forward engineering vs complex electronics. 
Advantages: High accuracy; not fluid specific; high signal to noise ratio; no pressure drop requirements; suitable for both turbulent and laminar liquid flow.
Disadvantages: Susceptible to process vibrations/pulsations/noise; sensitive to gas.

Turbine 

The energy required to spin the rotor of a turbine flowmeter becomes swamped by the drag from the system at low flow rates. As flow rate reduces and transitions from turbulent to laminar flow, the linearity changes and the measurements become less accurate. Pelton wheel turbines that use low friction, precision bearings can mitigate this effect to some degree and with careful design, are capable of flows down to 1-2ml/min. They are capable of fast response times and operate across wide flow and operating temperature ranges.
Design challenge: Straight-forward electronics vs complex precision engineering.
Advantages: Low cost; can be calibrated in-situ; good accuracy and repeatability with rapid response times.
Disadvantages: Susceptible to changes in fluid properties; requires sufficient pressure to move liquid through the pipeline at a rate that causes the turbine blades to spin.

Oval Gear 

Positive displacement flow meters, such as oval gear meters, are particularly effective for measuring low flow viscous fluids, although the resolution can be quite low. To obtain good resolution, the oval gear meters need to be small in low flow applications. Installing an oval gear meter in a horizontal position will reduce rotational friction and improve low-flow measurements. The lower the flow, the smaller the gear size, which are manufactured to tight tolerances with small internal clearances to minimise any fluid leakage around the gears.
Design challenge: Straight-forward electronics vs complex precision engineering. 
Advantages: Ideal for viscous liquids, precision chemical dosing; good reliability.
Disadvantages: Not suitable for low flow aqueous solutions as the slippage past the moving element is greater than the volume being measured. Trapped air can prevent small gears from rotating – ensure all gas is purged on initial startup. Low resolution.

Thermal

Thermal flow sensors, primarily used for monitoring gas flow, operate on the principle of monitoring thermal transfer using a reference temperature, a heat injection and a detector. The basic approach is that heat is added to the flowing stream and a temperature imbalance being used to obtain a flow rate. They are fluid-specific as the technology relies on the liquid’s thermal properties and are generally calibrated for the specific fluid properties.  
Design challenge: Relatively simple engineering vs complex electronics.
Advantages: Highly sensitive and able to measure flow rates down to nanolitres per minute; suitable for low pressure drop applications; not so reliant on the dynamics of the fluid to make a measurement.
Disadvantages: Fluid-specific. Thermal low-flow liquid flowmeters are non-linear over their temperature range and so require some correction during the process. Not suitable for low boiling point liquids or liquid mixtures with changing composition.

Coriolis 

The Coriolis is a mass flowmeter, i.e. measures mass flow directly and independently of the liquid’s properties. The Coriolis provides mass flow and density measurements that are both repeatable and highly accurate, even when the composition of the liquid is unknown or changing. Using the principle of accelerating a moving fluid and detecting the reaction on the vibrating tube with sensors, Coriolis meters are very sensitive and flows lower than 0.2 ml/min are possible.
Design challenge: Complex electronics and engineering. 
Advantages: Extensive material compatibility; can be used for either liquid or gas flow measurement; independent of liquid or process variables.
Disadvantages: The primary limitation is the flow must be single-phase and of low viscosity. They are also expensive devices so would not be suitable for low-cost low flow applications.

As flowmeters can be the most limiting component of a low flow fluidic system, it is essential to choose the most suitable high-precision flow sensor for an application. 

Process Sensing Technologies (PST) has recently launched a range of intrinsically safe optical liquid level switches. Using innovative infrared technology and the principle of total internal reflection, these hazardous approved switches are suitable for a wide range of applications, including presence or absence of any liquid, petrochemicals/oil and gas, heavy-duty automotive, leak detection, hydraulic reservoirs, tank/container levelcontrol, and downstream analyzer protection. The switches offer an almost instantaneous response time and switch point repeatability of +/- 1 mm, providing highly accurate readings, and require no calibration.

For operating temperatures up to 80°C

These liquid level switches are highly robust and resistant to chemical attack, with an operating temperature range between -30 and +80°C (-22…+176°F). The switches are housed in 316 stainless steel and come with a choice of sensing tip materials, making them ideal for use in challenging environments. ATEX, UKCA, and IECEx certified, these switches offer metric and imperial process connection options with NAMUR output. The PST range of intrinsically safe optical liquid level switches offer exceptional reliability and accuracy for use in challenging environments and are designed and certified to meet the highest industry standards.

Build­ing on the suc­cess of the ac­claimed FLEXI-FLOW Com­pact series, Bronk­horst presents a com­pre­hens­ive line ex­ten­sion of­fer­ing un­par­alleled ver­sat­il­ity and pre­ci­sion in gas flow meas­ure­ment and con­trol. FLEXI-FLOW Com­pact sets a new stand­ard in com­pact­ness, func­tion­al­ity and ad­apt­ab­il­ity, serving a wide range of ap­plic­a­tions with pre­ci­sion and ef­fi­ciency.

In­teg­rated Eth­er­Net com­mu­nic­a­tion 

The latest it­er­a­tion of the FLEXI-FLOW Com­pact range in­tro­duces a num­ber of in­nov­at­ive mod­els and fea­tures, in­clud­ing in­stru­ments tailored for lower flow ranges from 0-5 mln/min. In ad­di­tion, the range now in­cludes down­por­ted in­stru­ments for ap­plic­a­tions where top-mount­ing is re­quired, and flow con­trol­lers with in­teg­ral shut-off valves to provide a high­er de­gree of leak tight­ness or emer­gency shut off. One of the key en­hance­ments to the FLEXI-FLOW Com­pact Series is the in­clu­sion of Eth­er­Net com­mu­nic­a­tion, provid­ing seam­less con­nectiv­ity and in­teg­ra­tion cap­ab­il­it­ies for mod­ern in­dus­tri­al en­vir­on­ments.

The new mod­els, like the ori­gin­al FLEXI-FLOW Com­pact in­stru­ments, util­ise a unique through-chip sensor com­bined with proven by­pass tech­no­logy. These thermal mass flow meters and con­trol­lers of­fer ex­cep­tion­al per­form­ance and are 35% smal­ler than tra­di­tion­al in­stru­ments, mak­ing them the smal­lest on the mar­ket for flow ranges up to 20 ln/min.

Fast re­sponse for pre­cise con­trol

Ad­vanced sensor tech­no­logy en­sures not only stable flow con­trol, but also fast re­sponse times, with set­tling times of less than 150 ms, en­abling pre­cise con­trol even un­der dy­nam­ic pro­cess con­di­tions. In­teg­rated tem­per­at­ure and pres­sure sensors and an on-board gas data­base en­sure un­par­alleled ac­cur­acy over vary­ing pro­cess para­met­ers, mak­ing the in­stru­ments ad­apt­able to a wide range of ap­plic­a­tions. They also of­fer com­pre­hens­ive mon­it­or­ing and con­trol fea­tures, in­clud­ing in­teg­rated tem­per­at­ure and pres­sure sensors, a USB-C port for easy setup, op­tion­al Bluetooth com­mu­nic­a­tion for im­proved ac­cess­ib­il­ity, and NAMUR status in­dic­a­tion via col­oured LEDs and di­git­al out­put para­met­ers.

Wheth­er as pre-con­figured mod­els, built-to-or­der solu­tions or cus­tom­ised multi-chan­nel sys­tems, the FLEXI­FLOW Com­pact range of­fers un­ri­valled flex­ib­il­ity to meet spe­cif­ic ap­plic­a­tion re­quire­ments. With free and in­tu­it­ive soft­ware tools for con­fig­ur­a­tion, dia­gnostics and pre­dict­ive main­ten­ance, Bronk­horst en­sures seam­less in­teg­ra­tion and op­tim­al per­form­ance in vari­ous in­dus­tri­al en­vir­on­ments.
 

There are ap­plic­a­tions that push level meas­ure­ment to its lim­its. Un­til re­cently, this in­cluded a pro­cess called iron bri­quet­ting, where it was al­most im­possible to achieve re­li­able meas­ur­ing res­ults due to ex­treme tem­per­at­ures. That has changed. Now, the new high-tem­per­at­ure ver­sion of Vega Grieshaber's radar sensor VE­GAPULS 6X provides a ground­break­ing solu­tion for pro­cesses at tem­per­at­ures up to 450 °C.

Sponge iron is an in­ter­me­di­ate product in steel pro­duc­tion. To store or trans­port it eco­nom­ic­ally, it is of­ten pro­cessed in­to bri­quettes. The tech­nique in­volves passing the por­ous, spongy mass through heat-res­ist­ant roller presses at tem­per­at­ures of 400 °C and high­er.

New solu­tion for an old prob­lem

For many years, pre­cise level meas­ure­ment was the bot­tle­neck in this pro­cess. Con­ven­tion­al meas­ure­ment tech­no­logy was not able to func­tion re­li­ably un­der the harsh con­di­tions, be­cause in ad­di­tion to the heat, the low con­duct­iv­ity of iron also proved to be an im­ped­i­ment.

For chal­len­ging ap­plic­a­tions such as these, VEGA now of­fers the high-tem­per­at­ure ver­sion of its VE­GAPULS 6X radar sensor. Thanks to its hol­low ceram­ic cone and graph­ite seal, the sensor achieves a thermal per­form­ance that was pre­vi­ously not pos­sible. “It’s true that hot bri­quet­ting is a niche pro­cess,” ad­mits product man­ager Mar­vin Moser. However, there are count­less such ex­tremes and spe­cial cases for which re­li­able meas­ure­ment tech­no­logy is all the more im­port­ant. “Fail­ure is not an op­tion here,” he says, con­vinced that “if VE­GAPULS 6X can handle this, then it is suit­able for all such ex­treme cases.”

New per­form­ance class

In or­der to achieve sig­ni­fic­antly bet­ter per­form­ance un­der ex­tremely high tem­per­at­ures, VEGA pro­tects its radar sensors with a new type of sensor design.

The com­bin­a­tion of hol­low ceram­ic cone and graph­ite seal cre­ates ad­di­tion­al meas­ure­ment cer­tainty. By min­im­ising the mass to be pen­et­rated in the hol­low cone, the per­form­ance of the sensor is sig­ni­fic­antly en­hanced. The use of graph­ite as a seal­ing ma­ter­i­al also con­trib­utes greatly to the ro­bust­ness of the sensor. As a res­ult, it has a tem­per­at­ure res­ist­ance range from -196 °C to +450 °C and a pres­sure res­ist­ance range from -1 bar to +160 bar. Even large tem­per­at­ure fluc­tu­ations are not a prob­lem.

Made to fit

Be­sides be­ing highly res­ist­ant, VE­GAPULS 6X of­fers an­oth­er ma­jor ad­vant­age that is par­tic­u­larly use­ful for com­pact ves­sels. It can be used with a wide range of avail­able pro­cess fit­tings, com­pact threads and small flanges, and op­er­ates without a block­ing dis­tance i.e. dead band. Pro­cess ves­sels can thus be filled right up to the top edge with no prob­lem. Its high fre­quency of 80 GHz also en­ables par­tic­u­larly good fo­cus­sing of its meas­ur­ing beam, which in turn has a pos­it­ive ef­fect on meas­ure­ment in tanks with in­tern­al in­stall­a­tions and agit­at­ors. What is more, its high dy­nam­ic range makes it pos­sible to re­li­ably meas­ure me­dia that were pre­vi­ously con­sidered nearly im­possible to meas­ure due to their low dielec­tric con­stant. Are they com­pletely se­cure?

Up-to-date safety and se­cur­ity

Max­im­um sys­tem se­cur­ity is one of the most im­port­ant goals in the pro­cess in­dustry. To achieve this, VEGA has im­ple­men­ted a com­pre­hens­ive se­cur­ity concept with the VE­GAPULS 6X level sensor. At the top of the list is the sensor design it­self, which eas­ily with­stands ex­treme am­bi­ent con­di­tions. In ad­di­tion, the sensor cov­ers se­cur­ity and safety is­sues such as cy­ber­se­cur­ity, func­tion­al safety in ac­cord­ance with the Ma­chinery Dir­ect­ive and ex­plo­sion pro­tec­tion, all the while com­ply­ing with the highest in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ards and cur­rent dir­ect­ives. 
 

In pro­cess man­u­fac­tur­ing ap­plic­a­tions in­clud­ing phar­ma­ceut­ic­al as well as food and bever­age pro­duc­tion, dia­phragm valves sup­port the hy­giene im­per­at­ive. In ad­di­tion to pre­vent­ing con­tam­in­a­tion, dia­phragm valve design en­ables clean­ing and ster­il­isa­tion to meet reg­u­lat­ory stand­ards. While clean in place (CIP) and ster­il­isa­tion in place (SIP) prac­tices are es­sen­tial, they de­mand time and en­ergy.

A hy­gien­ic sys­tem, com­pris­ing tubing and valves, is steam ster­il­ised to over 100°C and is then air cooled to be­low 45°C where pro­duc­tion can re­sume. The longer each pro­cess takes, the lower the sys­tem’s pro­duc­tion ca­pa­city. In­creased time also means high­er en­ergy use, both with a great­er de­mand on steam gen­er­a­tion to reach the re­quired ster­il­isa­tion level, as well as power­ing the air cool­ing sys­tem to quickly re­duce the tem­per­at­ure.

Crit­ic­al to this pro­cess is the choice of valve body. Though they com­prise just a frac­tion of the sys­tem’s total length of tube, even when hun­dreds might be used, pro­duc­tion can­not re­sume un­til the valve bod­ies are cleaned, ster­il­ised, and cooled. This makes the im­port­ance of valve body spe­cific­a­tion much great­er than their phys­ic­al scale might sug­gest.

Hy­dro­formed valve bod­ies

Tra­di­tion­ally, dia­phragm valve bod­ies are forged, where the stain­less steel, re­quired for its hy­gien­ic prop­er­ties, is heated and com­pressed in­to place. A forged valve body has a longer heat trans­fer ca­pa­city, so a cast design, where the stain­less steel is shaped in a mould, is prefer­able. Faster still, both at heat­ing up and cool­ing down, is a valve body man­u­fac­tured with hy­dro­form­ing, which in­volves high pres­sure flu­id to cre­ate the design. This can be com­bined with the pro­cesses of an­neal­ing that in­creases dur­ab­il­ity by re­liev­ing re­sid­ual stress and im­prov­ing cor­ro­sion res­ist­ance, as well as laser weld­ing that can es­tab­lish a hy­gien­ic seal without adding any ex­tra ma­ter­i­al.

To­geth­er, these man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­niques cre­ate a more light­weight valve body design, and this low mass achieves rap­id heat trans­fer. While a forged valve body can take nearly 10 minutes to cool down to 45°C from the ster­il­isa­tion tem­per­at­ure, a com­par­at­ive hy­dro­formed valve body reaches the mark in just over four minutes, and this dif­fer­ence can sig­ni­fic­antly speed up pro­duc­tion turn­around.

Op­tim­ising sus­tain­ab­il­ity

A hy­dro­formed design also re­duces the steam re­quire­ment, and hence en­ergy use, ne­ces­sary dur­ing SIP. This can rep­res­ent a sig­ni­fic­ant cost sav­ing, es­pe­cially when mul­ti­plied across all in­stalled valves. As hy­dro­formed valve bod­ies can be as much as 75% light­er, this also saves costs in in­stall­a­tion with few­er sup­port­ing struc­tures re­quired. 

This en­ergy sav­ing also provides an ad­vant­age in sus­tain­ab­il­ity. Ac­cord­ing to the in­de­pend­ent veri­fi­er, Trus­ted Foot­print, com­par­ing 1” tubing, up to 38% less gCO₂ equi­val­ent can be saved by us­ing a hy­dro­formed design, like the Bürkert Tube Valve Body, rather than a forged vari­ant. Tak­ing car­bon emis­sions in valve body man­u­fac­ture in­to con­sid­er­a­tion, hy­dro­form­ing is also far green­er. For a 1.5” device, Trus­ted Foot­print con­firms that the Bürkert Tube Valve Body gen­er­ates 58% less emis­sions in car­bon di­ox­ide equi­val­ent dur­ing its man­u­fac­ture, which in­cludes steel pro­duc­tion as well as pro­cessing tech­niques, com­pared to a forged body of the same size.

Re­li­ab­il­ity and hy­gien­ic con­form­ance

Al­though cost sav­ing and sus­tain­ab­il­ity im­prove­ments are highly im­port­ant, valve body per­form­ance is fun­da­ment­al. To en­sure op­tim­um dur­ab­il­ity, the design and man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­niques of the valve body have to meet burst and leak pres­sure spe­cific­a­tions. A safety factor mul­tiple times the re­quired real-world level can be achieved through the hy­dro­form­ing and an­neal­ing pro­cesses, com­bined with the ne­ces­sary con­form­ance in wall thick­ness. It’s also es­sen­tial to en­sure that any weld­ing can with­stand the sud­den tem­per­at­ure changes of ster­il­iz­a­tion and cool­ing, as well as res­ist­ance to crack­ing un­der vi­bra­tion. 

Equally cru­cial is hy­gien­ic con­form­ance. 316L stain­less steel achieves this, and the design, in­clud­ing weld lines, has to re­main cor­ro­sion-free un­der in­tens­ive sa­line test­ing. Ul­ti­mately, a ma­ter­i­al in­spec­tion cer­ti­fic­ate 3.1 ac­cord­ing to EN10204, with a CIP-cap­able design that meets EHEDG Type EL, CLASS I Cer­ti­fic­a­tion, as well as 3-A San­it­ary Stand­ards, cre­ate trust in hy­gien­ic con­form­ance.

Meet­ing stand­ards in sus­tain­ab­il­ity

While re­li­ab­il­ity and hy­gien­ic con­form­ance should be a giv­en in spe­cific­a­tion, op­tim­ising valve body design can not only in­crease pro­ductiv­ity but can also en­hance sus­tain­ab­il­ity. Lower en­ergy use in op­er­a­tion, in ad­di­tion to the lower car­bon emis­sions in valve body man­u­fac­ture, can help provide a pharma, food & bev, or cos­met­ics man­u­fac­turer with the sus­tain­ab­il­ity cre­den­tials they need from a sup­pli­er. In­teg­rat­ing light, strong tube valve bod­ies, these pro­du­cers can re­duce costs in pro­duc­tion as well.
 

SAM­SON has en­gin­eered the new Type 251GR product line to tackle mar­ket chal­lenges of their cus­tom­ers. This new valve gen­er­a­tion sets new stand­ards for the pro­cess in­dustry in terms of ef­fi­ciency, mod­u­lar­ity and sus­tain­ab­il­ity. The new valve is part of SAM­SON's glob­al pro­duc­tion strategy for a faster de­liv­ery per­form­ance world­wide. The new valve con­struc­tion is aimed at all users of con­trol valves, es­pe­cially in the tar­get mar­kets of oil and gas, chem­ic­als and pet­ro­chem­ic­als as well as power and en­ergy.

251GR sig­nals the launch of the in­nov­at­ive Shared Mod­u­lar Sys­tem (SMS), which al­lows valves to be cus­tom-en­gin­eered based on the mod­u­lar plat­form. SAM­SON is break­ing new ground with this in­nov­at­ive mod­u­lar sys­tem, which will make it easi­er to in­stall, ser­vice and op­er­ate these valves. Thanks to our Shared Mod­u­lar Sys­tem, the Type 251GR Valve can cov­er an un­usu­ally wide spec­trum of ap­plic­a­tions in the pro­cess in­dustry. It also al­lows us to sig­ni­fic­antly re­duce the num­ber of com­pon­ents, com­plex­ity and lead times with­in our own value chain. The valve trims at the last stage of valve as­sembly are se­lec­ted based on the ap­plic­a­tion and pro­cess con­di­tions. These trims are made us­ing the latest man­u­fac­tur­ing meth­ods, such as 3D print­ing, to meet cus­tom­ers' ex­act needs.

Rugged con­struc­tion for a wide ap­plic­a­tion­al range

The fun­da­ment­al com­pon­ents of the valve, such as body or bon­net, re­main un­changed while the pos­sible range of ap­plic­a­tion is reg­u­lated by the sub­or­din­ate parts used in the valve. This makes it much easi­er to in­stall, start-up and ser­vice these valves. Fur­ther­more, this ap­proach also makes it easi­er to com­ply with com­plex reg­u­la­tions and ful­fill cer­ti­fic­a­tion re­quire­ments. Along with that, a uni­form IT in­fra­struc­ture fa­cil­it­ates the man­age­ment and ad­min­is­tra­tion of pro­duc­tion and work pro­ced­ures for in­ter­na­tion­al sup­pli­ers.

The Type 251GR Valve is a ver­sat­ile con­trol solu­tion for the pro­cess in­dustry. With pres­sure rat­ings up to Class 900/PN 160 and tem­per­at­ures from –50 to +600 °C, it serves a wide range of ap­plic­a­tions to con­trol li­quids, gases and va­pors un­der chal­len­ging con­di­tions. The rugged new con­struc­tion can handle all com­mon en­gin­eer­ing re­quire­ments im­posed by the mar­kets. Oth­er suc­cessor mod­els, which are cur­rently be­ing de­veloped, will be en­gin­eered to cov­er an even wider scope of ap­plic­a­tions. 
 

The seal man­u­fac­turer C. Otto Gehr­ck­ens has de­veloped the EP­DM com­pound “AP 307” for highly sens­it­ive pro­duc­tion pro­cesses in the food and phar­ma­ceut­ic­al in­dus­tries, bi­o­tech­no­logy and med­ic­al tech­no­logy. Key ap­provals for ap­plic­a­tions in these highly de­mand­ing sec­tors have been ob­tained for this spe­cial ma­ter­i­al in the COG Hy­gien­ic­Seal series. 

High res­ist­ance in CIP/SIP pro­cesses

In ad­di­tion to the safety as­sess­ment ac­cord­ing to FDA 21 CFR 177.2600, AP 307 has been ap­proved ac­cord­ing to USP Chapter 87 and USP Chapter 88 Class VI up to +121 °C. The EP­DM com­pound has also passed the cyto­tox­icity test (ac­cord­ing to ISO 10993-5:2009). The ex­tremely low mi­gra­tion val­ues of this EP­DM com­pound are par­tic­u­larly rel­ev­ant for ap­plic­a­tions where there is a risk of con­tam­in­a­tion with the me­dia be­ing con­tained by the seal, for ex­ample, in cell cul­tiv­a­tion or in­sulin pro­duc­tion. The high-per­form­ance ma­ter­i­al is ex­tremely res­ist­ant in con­tact with CIP and SIP me­dia, and also suit­able for ap­plic­a­tions with ag­gress­ive wa­ter for in­jec­tion (WFI). With an op­er­at­ing tem­per­at­ure range of -40 °C to +150 °C, AP 307 has the flex­ib­il­ity to meet spe­cial re­quire­ments in the pro­duc­tion pro­cess.
 

Milton Roy an­nounces the launch of the new Primeroy­al™ Q series (PQ) chem­ic­al meter­ing pump. for high per­form­ance in a wide ar­ray of in­dus­tri­al ap­plic­a­tions. The PQ series boasts an ex­tens­ive and mod­u­lar API 675 range that in­cludes eight dis­tinct drive sizes and nine ad­vanced li­quid end tech­no­lo­gies, en­sur­ing un­par­alleled ver­sat­il­ity, and the abil­ity to meet the most de­mand­ing hy­draul­ic per­form­ance re­quire­ments for high flows and high dis­charge pres­sures.

The Q series of­fers a max­im­um flow rate of 8,657 l/h (2,199 gph) per dos­ing head and max­im­um dis­charge pres­sure of 1,035 bar (15,011 psi). The series caters to a di­verse spec­trum of cus­tom­er needs, de­liv­er­ing a ro­bust and ad­apt­able solu­tion de­signed to ex­cel un­der the most strin­gent in­dus­tri­al con­di­tions. Tailored to with­stand the rig­ors of con­tinu­ous, round-the-clock op­er­a­tion, the Q series meets the de­mands of 24/7 du­ties without com­prom­ise on per­form­ance or pre­ci­sion. 

Safety for all kinds of flu­ids

The Primeroy­al™ Q series has been me­tic­u­lously en­gin­eered with three proven li­quid end types - packed plun­ger, PT­FE, or metal­lic dia­phragm - that have been the corner­stone of re­li­ab­il­ity for over two dec­ades with­in the Primeroy­al™ and Mil­roy­al® series. The double dia­phragm li­quid end tech­no­logy, coupled with a soph­ist­ic­ated leak de­tec­tion sys­tem, of­fers su­per­i­or safety for hand­ling all types of flu­ids in­clud­ing crit­ic­al, tox­ic, harm­ful, and ex­plos­ive pro­cess flu­ids. In com­pli­ance with API 675 stand­ards the pumps of­fer steady state ac­cur­acy (±1%), lin­ear­ity and re­peat­ab­il­ity (±3%). The max­im­um flow rate offered is 8,657 l/h (2,199 gph) per dos­ing head, max­im­um dis­charge pres­sure is 1,035 bar (15,011 psi) and max. suc­tion pres­sure 371 bar (5,380 psi) ded­ic­ated for li­quified gases ap­plic­a­tion. 

For ver­sat­il­ity in ap­plic­a­tions the series is avail­able with large li­quid end tech­no­logy of­fer­ing (packed plun­ger, PT­FE or metal­lic stain­less-steel single/double dia­phragm) and the pumps work in am­bi­ent tem­per­at­ures from -10° to + 50 °C (+14° to +122 °F). 

The Primeroy­al™ Q pumps are spe­cific­ally de­signed to cater to a broad spec­trum of flu­id dos­ing needs, with a fo­cus on in­dus­tries such as oil and gas for high-pres­sure meth­an­ol in­jec­tion at the well­head and the in­jec­tion of cor­ro­sion in­hib­it­ors and chem­ic­als for re­fined product treat­ment. In chem­ic­al and pet­ro­chem­ic­al pro­cessing for pre­cise dos­ing of cata­lysts in poly­mer­iz­a­tion pro­cesses, and in power gen­er­a­tion for high-pres­sure boil­er feed wa­ter treat­ment and more.
 

ATAM presents its new solen­oid valve cable con­nect­ors, with ATEX (EU Dir­ect­ive) and IECEx (in­ter­na­tion­al) cer­ti­fic­a­tion, de­veloped for fixed or mo­bile ap­plic­a­tions in haz­ard­ous areas. With the sup­port of ex­perts from the ATEX world, ATAM has self-cer­ti­fied its Form A (18 mm) and Form B (11 mm) con­nect­ors for use in 3G (gas/va­pours) and 3D (powder/dust) cat­egory equip­ment ac­cord­ing to the ATEX clas­si­fic­a­tion, thus en­sur­ing a suit­able level of pro­tec­tion in Zone 2 and Zone 22.

ATAM’s new ATEX-cer­ti­fied con­nect­ors stem from re­quests by its cus­tom­er base, that already uses the com­pany’s ATEX-cer­ti­fied coils, to also pro­duce con­nect­ors, thus guar­an­tee­ing the all-round com­pat­ib­il­ity and, there­fore, safety of the ap­plic­a­tion. The con­nect­ors can also be used with coils not ne­ces­sar­ily pro­duced by ATAM.

Ver­sat­ile kits with ac­cessor­ies 

To meet an­oth­er mar­ket re­quire­ment, namely max­im­um ver­sat­il­ity, the con­nect­ors are sup­plied both in kits with stand­ard DIN con­nec­tions and dis­as­sembled, to­geth­er with a whole range of ac­cessor­ies such as gas­kets, cable clamps, and cables in dif­fer­ent shapes and formats. For ex­ample, the cable clamp comes in two ver­sions that en­sure max­im­um ver­sat­il­ity for the dia­met­er of cables that can be clamped while the gas­kets come in both flat and lip ver­sions. In short, this is a com­pre­hens­ive kit de­signed to cov­er the most wide­spread ap­plic­a­tions in the mar­ket with a single product.

Joint com­pon­ent de­vel­op­ment for op­tim­ized re­li­ab­il­ity

With the in­tro­duc­tion of Form A and Form B cable con­nect­ors, ATAM now ex­pands its op­er­at­ing scope to po­ten­tially ex­plos­ive en­vir­on­ments with products - con­nect­or + coil - that be­ne­fit from joint de­vel­op­ment, while also re­ly­ing on a state-of-the-art test labor­at­ory. This al­lows the com­pany to sim­u­late the com­bined use of the two products and to veri­fy the seal­ing strength of the com­pon­ents even un­der ex­treme re­quire­ments. The res­ult is an ex­cel­lent solu­tion in terms of re­li­ab­il­ity, qual­ity and af­ford­ab­il­ity.

By per­form­ing nu­mer­ous tests the con­nect­or kits are all sup­plied with de­tailed in­struc­tions for quick and ac­cur­ate in­stall­a­tions in com­pli­ance with the strin­gent reg­u­la­tions.

Ad­vances in cell and gene ther­apy make it pos­sible for treat­ments – and thus also drugs – to be in­di­vidu­ally tailored to the re­spect­ive pa­tient. These are re­ferred to as “ad­vanced ther­apy medi­cin­al products” – in short AT­MPs – or drugs for ad­vanced ther­apies. Live cells or de­fect­ive genes are taken from the pa­tient, pro­cessed in the labor­at­ory and then ad­min­istered again. In this way, dis­eases can be treated or pre­ven­ted, and even dam­aged tis­sue or or­gans re­gen­er­ated and re­placed. 

“Per­son­al­ized medi­cine means that the batch sizes of bio­phar­ma­ceut­ic­al products are in­creas­ingly smal­ler and they are not al­ways bottled in tra­di­tion­al vi­als or syr­inges,” ex­plains Fa­bi­an Stutz, CEO of Pharm­a­botix. His com­pany, which spe­cial­izes in ro­bot­ics and auto­ma­tion solu­tions for the phar­ma­ceut­ic­al in­dustry, is based in Seen­gen / Switzer­land. Un­der the brand name “Sally”, Pharm­a­botix mar­kets vari­ous mod­ules for the cell and gene ther­apy mar­ket and lab sec­tor.

Auto­mated filling of up to sev­en cryo­vi­als per minute

For small batch sizes, the phar­ma­ceut­ic­al in­dustry re­lies largely on manu­al pro­cesses. This, however, is la­bour in­tens­ive. The com­plex pro­cess also calls for highly-trained em­ploy­ees, and yet the qual­ity de­pends heav­ily on the in­di­vidu­al. “In ad­di­tion, these pro­duc­tion pro­cesses are dif­fi­cult to scale com­mer­cially and take to the mass pro­duc­tion stage,” says Stutz. 

That is why Pharm­a­botix has de­veloped a concept for auto­mated filling of cryo­vi­als for cell and gene ther­apy. The stip­u­la­tion: the Cryo­Filler mod­ule must be able to auto­mat­ic­ally fill up to sev­en vi­als per minute. 

Cryo­vi­als are con­tain­ers made of cold-res­ist­ant plastic, in which bio­lo­gic­al samples or cells are stored in li­quid ni­tro­gen at up to -196°C. This en­sures the sta­bil­ity and qual­ity of the samples. Un­like clas­sic vi­als, they are not closed with a plug and a met­al cap, but with a screw cap.

The right clos­ure on each vi­al

The basis of the Cryo­Filler is a Lab­worx ta­ble top sys­tem from Groninger, one of the world’s largest man­u­fac­tur­ers of filling sys­tems. The cryo­vi­als are placed in a rack or de­livered by a flex­ible feed­ing sys­tem. One or more screw sys­tems – de­pend­ing on cycle time – open the vi­als. They are auto­mat­ic­ally filled and then closed again. A Yaskawa Mo­to­man HD8 with elec­tric grip­per is re­spons­ible for hand­ling the cryo­vi­als. 

The cell it­self meets the strict re­quire­ments for GMP class A and B clean­rooms and is thus clas­si­fied for the man­u­fac­ture of aseptic products. The cryo­vi­als are also sterile. This presen­ted the Pharm­a­botix de­velopers with a spe­cial chal­lenge: “For the in­teg­rity of the product and seam­less trace­ab­il­ity, after filling the cor­rect clos­ure must be screwed onto the re­spect­ive vi­als,” Stutz ex­plains. 

Hy­gien­ic design for the highest clean­room class

The Pharm­a­botix team placed clear re­quire­ments on the ro­bot for the Cryo­Filler. Among oth­er things, clean­ing should be pos­sible with in­dustry-stand­ard agents and de­con­tam­in­a­tion with hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide (H₂O₂). “For us only the Yaskawa’s Mo­to­man HD8 came in­to con­sid­er­a­tion. We con­tac­ted Yaskawa dir­ectly, and thus we were in­tro­duced to Swiss rep­res­ent­at­ive Swiss­Drives, which provided the ro­bot,” re­ports Stutz. 

With the new Mo­to­man HD series, Yaskawa re­cently brought two 6-ax­is high-per­form­ance ro­bots onto the mar­ket that sat­is­fy the strict de­mands of the pharma in­dustry and sim­il­arly hy­giene-sens­it­ive in­dus­tries. They are suit­able for use in hy­gien­ic areas up to the highest clean­room class GMP Class A. 

HD stands for “hy­gien­ic design”. It was de­veloped to­geth­er with the Ger­man Fraunhofer In­sti­tute for pro­duc­tion en­gin­eer­ing and auto­ma­tion (IPA). All ap­plic­a­tion cables and me­dia lines run in­side the hous­ing. In ad­di­tion, the design is roun­ded and free of dead spaces without ex­tern­al screws, gaps or un­der­cuts. The Mo­to­man HD8 is thus easy to clean with all stand­ard dis­in­fect­ants and pro­ced­ures. The res­ist­ant sur­face is also par­tic­u­larly smooth, so that no dirt particles and mi­croor­gan­isms can ad­here. Due to pro­tect­ive class IP69K it is ideally suited to lab, hu­mid and clean­room en­vir­on­ments.

User-friendly in­ter­face 

When it comes to auto­ma­tion, Pharm­a­botix uses the SRCI Stand­ard Ro­bot Com­mand In­ter­face. This in­ter­face en­ables fast and straight­for­ward pro­gram­ming of ro­bot move­ments dir­ectly in the PLC. Without spe­cial know­ledge of the ro­bot con­trol­ler, the user can nav­ig­ate in the stand­ard IEC-61131 en­vir­on­ment and use the fa­mil­i­ar op­er­at­ing en­vir­on­ment to op­er­ate the ro­bot. Mean­while all genu­ine ad­vant­ages of the ro­bot con­trols are re­tained: the ro­bot con­trols cal­cu­late the move­ment kin­emat­ics and guar­an­tees high mo­tion qual­ity. The SRCI is not lim­ited to a spe­cif­ic PLC or field­bus. 

Pharm­a­botix uses the Siemens WinCC uni­fied plat­form. “An im­port­ant pre­requis­ite was there­fore that the Mo­to­man HD8 be com­pat­ible with the Siemens con­trol­ler. Be­cause the op­er­a­tion of Sally should be as simple and in­tu­it­ive as pos­sible, and achieved via a single pan­el. In the reg­u­lated range this of­fers a fur­ther ad­vant­age: Only one con­trol must be tested – with less ef­fort and costs,” says Stutz.

Mo­to­man HD8 brings us closer to the vis­ion for Sally

The concept of the Cryo­Filler mod­ule for Sally was presen­ted to po­ten­tial users in a work­shop as “proof of concept”. The feed­back has over­all been very pos­it­ive. Now Pharm­a­botix is fur­ther de­vel­op­ing the sys­tem which – among oth­ers – sat­is­fies the re­quire­ments of EU GMP An­nex 1. The lat­ter defines the re­quire­ments for the man­u­fac­ture of sterile phar­ma­ceut­ic­als in the EU.
Pharm­a­botix aims to po­s­i­tion Sally as a mod­u­lar plat­form for vari­ous dif­fer­ent auto­mated pro­cesses in cell and gene ther­apy, with ro­bots as a cent­ral hand­ling ele­ment. Stutz is con­vinced: “To­geth­er with Yaskawa and Swiss­Drives, and the use of a Mo­to­man HD8 in the Cryo­Filler mod­ule, we have come a sig­ni­fic­ant step closer to this vis­ion.”
 

With the in­tro­duc­tion of the in­nov­at­ive di­git­al twin plat­form and di­git­al name­plates, R. STAHL, an ex­pert in ex­plo­sion pro­tec­tion, is mark­ing a new mile­stone in the pro­cess in­dustry. This ground­break­ing tech­no­logy makes it pos­sible to ef­fi­ciently man­age and in­ter­act­ively use di­git­al twins of ac­tu­al sys­tem com­pon­ents, which of­fers ma­jor be­ne­fits for op­er­at­ors, plan­ners and man­u­fac­tur­ers of pro­cess sys­tems.

Op­tim­isa­tions for op­er­a­tion and main­en­ance

The di­git­al name­plate is a tech­nic­ally more ad­vanced ver­sion of the tra­di­tion­al rat­ing plate. One of its func­tions is to provide all of the in­form­a­tion and mark­ings re­quired for safe use and main­ten­ance of products in di­git­al form. This in­form­a­tion can be ac­cessed from any­where in the world, at any time, thanks to QR codes or RFID tags ac­cord­ing to IEC 61406 which are ap­plied to the products. By en­sur­ing that the rel­ev­ant data and doc­u­ment­a­tion is avail­able at all times, this forms the basis for op­tim­ising main­ten­ance work and op­er­a­tions man­age­ment as a whole. This makes it far easi­er to ad­here to safety and com­pli­ance reg­u­la­tions.

R. STAHL is one of the glob­al pi­on­eers to have suc­cess­fully im­ple­men­ted sub­mod­els such as the di­git­al name­plate, tech­nic­al data, han­dover doc­u­ment­a­tion and con­tact in­form­a­tion ac­cord­ing to the strict spe­cific­a­tions of the IDTA (In­dus­tri­al Di­git­al Twin As­so­ci­ation). "We're very pleased that R. STAHL is one of the first sup­pli­ers to fully im­ple­ment the IDTA sub­mod­els for types and in­stances when us­ing the di­git­al twin in prac­tice," ex­plains Meik Bill­mann, Ex­ec­ut­ive Dir­ect­or of the IDTA. "The com­bin­a­tion of di­git­al name­plates and di­git­al twins rep­res­ents a mile­stone for ef­fi­cient sys­tem op­er­a­tion and the in­ter­op­er­able use of data in the pro­cess in­dustry," high­lights Björn Höper, Head of Work­ing Group 1.4 "As­set Ad­min­is­tra­tion Shell" in the NAMUR user as­so­ci­ation.

R. STAHL presents six real ap­plic­a­tions which clearly demon­strate how the di­git­al plat­form can be ef­fect­ively used to op­er­ate pro­cess sys­tems more ef­fi­ciently and safely. The solu­tions range from the pro­vi­sion of doc­u­ments and auto­mat­ic no­ti­fic­a­tion of firm­ware up­dates, through to im­proved main­ten­ance pro­cesses.

Seam­less in­teg­ra­tion and in­ter­ac­tion with di­git­al twins

"With the launch of the di­git­al twin plat­form and di­git­al name­plates, we are set­ting a new stand­ard which not only in­creases safety and ef­fi­ciency when op­er­at­ing pro­cess sys­tems, but also plays a key part in the di­git­al trans­form­a­tion of the in­dustry," ex­plains Ro­land Dunker, Head of Di­git­al Ser­vices at R. STAHL. "Our plat­form en­ables seam­less in­teg­ra­tion and in­ter­ac­tion with di­git­al twins, mean­ing that our cus­tom­ers can achieve huge cost sav­ings and im­prove­ments, from plan­ning a sys­tem, op­er­at­ing it and then re­cyc­ling af­ter­wards.”

R. STAHL's di­git­al twin plat­form of­fers sup­port for ef­fect­ively im­ple­ment­ing con­cepts re­lat­ing to the in­dus­tri­al In­ter­net of Things and op­tim­ising pro­cesses throughout a sys­tem's en­tire life cycle. From plan­ning, com­mis­sion­ing, on­go­ing op­er­a­tions, right through to de­com­mis­sion­ing, all of the rel­ev­ant data is avail­able dir­ectly and is in­ter­op­er­able. This not only helps with pre­cise main­ten­ance and fast troubleshoot­ing, but also pro­motes sus­tain­able op­er­at­ing prac­tices. Plan­ning costs, re­quire­ments for up­dat­ing data, and down­times are min­im­ised and the en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact is re­duced.

The basis for the di­git­al product pass­port ac­cord­ing to the EU Reg­u­la­tion

The com­bin­a­tion of di­git­al name­plates and the di­git­al twin plat­form based on as­set ad­min­is­tra­tion shells from R. STAHL also ad­dresses an­oth­er com­pli­ance is­sue: Ac­cord­ing to the ES­PR (Eco­design for Sus­tain­able Products Reg­u­la­tion) of the European Uni­on, it is ex­pec­ted that a di­git­al product pass­port (DPP) will be man­dat­ory for products from 2026 on­wards. This meas­ure aims to provide in­form­a­tion about products with re­gard to their ori­gin, com­pos­i­tion, use and re­cyc­ling in di­git­al form so that they are sus­tain­able and re­cyc­lable. This is made pos­sible by the solu­tion based on di­git­al name­plates (ac­cord­ing to IEC 61406) and as­set ad­min­is­tra­tion shells on the di­git­al twin plat­form. Ro­land Dunker is con­fid­ent that "with the new di­git­al twin plat­form, this is an­oth­er area where R. STAHL is tak­ing on a lead­ing role in the sus­tain­able trans­form­a­tion of the in­dustry.”