Yokogawa an­nounced the re­lease of the lat­est ver­sion of OpreX™ Col­lab­o­ra­tive In­for­ma­tion Server, a prod­uct in the OpreX Con­trol and Safety Sys­tems lineup, with en­hance­ments that strengthen its us­abil­ity, multi-ven­dor in­te­gra­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties, and over­all sys­tem se­cu­rity, thereby in­creas­ing its op­er­abil­ity as an in­te­grated human ma­chine in­ter­face (HMI).

OpreX Col­lab­o­ra­tive In­for­ma­tion Server pro­vides an in­for­ma­tion in­fra­struc­ture that col­lects and cen­trally man­ages the vast amounts of data gen­er­ated by equip­ment and sys­tems in plants, wher­ever they may be lo­cated around the world, en­abling cross-func­tional vis­i­bil­ity across all pro­duc­tion ac­tiv­i­ties. By de­liv­er­ing the nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion at the right time through in­te­grated and re­mote op­er­a­tion en­vi­ron­ments, the sys­tem sup­ports ef­fi­cient plant op­er­a­tions and rapid de­ci­sion-mak­ing. The en­hanced ver­sion is avail­able as of now.

Development Background

Through­out the process in­dus­try, many dif­fer­ent kinds of ma­chin­ery and equip­ment are in use at man­u­fac­tur­ing plants and other types of fa­cil­i­ties. This is dri­ving the need for an in­te­grated HMI en­vi­ron­ment that will en­able ef­fi­cient op­er­a­tion and mon­i­tor­ing while pro­vid­ing an overview of the en­tire pro­duc­tion fa­cil­ity.

At the same time, this de­mand by field op­er­a­tors for the mi­gra­tion to new sys­tems is ac­com­pa­nied by a de­sire to re­tain the same screen lay­outs and op­er­a­tional look and feel of the con­trol sys­tems they are cur­rently using. Al­though OpreX Col­lab­o­ra­tive In­for­ma­tion Server is now in­creas­ingly used as an in­te­grated HMI, ad­di­tional en­gi­neer­ing has some­times been re­quired to en­sure a fa­mil­iar op­er­a­tional en­vi­ron­ment and high com­pat­i­bil­ity with the human in­ter­face sta­tion (HIS) of Yoko­gawa’s CEN­TUM VP in­te­grated pro­duc­tion con­trol sys­tem, which is part of the same OpreX Con­trol and Safety Sys­tems lineup.

Fur­ther­more, as the use of de­vices and soft­ware from a va­ri­ety of ven­dors has ex­panded in re­cent years, re­duc­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion de­vel­op­ment work­load, im­prov­ing in­ter­op­er­abil­ity, and en­hanc­ing se­cu­rity have be­come key chal­lenges in build­ing a com­mon plat­form. In re­sponse to these needs, Yoko­gawa has en­hanced the func­tion­al­ity of OpreX Col­lab­o­ra­tive In­for­ma­tion Server.

• Realization of integrated HMI with similar operability and high compatibility with conventional HIS
  With OpreX Collaborative Information Server’s integrated operation and monitoring interface, it is now possible to directly access specific operation and monitoring windows of CENTUM VP’s HIS. This enables field operators to use OpreX Collaborative Information Server as an integrated HMI environment while maintaining the same functions, screen configurations, and operability as a conventional HIS.
  In addition, screens from connected systems can be displayed via a remote desktop, further enhancing the convenience and usability of the integrated HMI environment.
  In the new version’s integrated operation and monitoring interface (upper left), it is now possible to directly access specific operation and monitoring windows of CENTUM VP (lower right)
• Improved efficiency in application development
  OpreX Collaborative Information Server’s OPC UA server information model function has been enhanced to support the use of multiple information models when connecting to equipment from different vendors. This makes it easier to accommodate differences in device and system configurations, thereby improving the efficiency of application development and achieving high levels of integration and interoperability.
• Reduction of IT security risks
  OpreX Collaborative Information Server now supports Yokogawa’s IT Security Tool, a security configuration package that is based on the CIS Benchmarks. Applying this tool enhances the settings of Windows computers with OpreX Collaborative Information Server installed, contributing to a reduction in security risks across the entire platform.
   

The major target markets are the following industries: oil and gas, petrochemicals, chemicals, renewable energy, power, pulp and paper, pharmaceuticals, food, mining, iron and steel, water distribution, and wastewater treatment. 

Longx­i­ang Hengyu Chem­i­cal Co., Ltd. has cho­sen ABB as strate­gic part­ner to pro­vide au­toma­tion and dig­i­tal so­lu­tions for its oxo-al­co­hol in­te­grated fa­cil­ity in Zhangzhou, Fu­jian province in south east China. The pro­ject rep­re­sents one of the largest Eth­er­net-APL (ad­vanced phys­i­cal layer) field net­work de­ploy­ments by a Chi­nese chem­i­cal en­ter­prise to date. The col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the two com­pa­nies will de­velop an APL-based smart plant de­signed for more au­tonomous op­er­a­tions in the fu­ture.

The plant will pro­duce 500,000 tons per year of bu­tanol, oc­tanol and down­stream de­riv­a­tives, which are widely used as raw ma­te­ri­als for tex­tiles, coat­ings and plas­ti­ciz­ers. The pro­ject is ex­pected to be com­pleted by the third quar­ter of 2027.

ABB will de­liver a full scope of au­toma­tion and dig­i­tal so­lu­tions sup­ported by Eth­er­net-APL, a two-wire Eth­er­net tech­nol­ogy en­abling high-speed, real-time data con­nec­tiv­ity across the plant. This en­hances com­mu­ni­ca­tion and full life­cy­cle data con­nec­tiv­ity be­tween field de­vices and con­trol sys­tems, pro­vid­ing more ef­fi­cient and re­li­able op­er­a­tions, which then helps re­duce en­ergy con­sump­tion, min­i­mize waste and lower over­all re­source usage.

Digital foundation reduces operation complexity

The fa­cil­ity is being de­signed with a dig­i­tal foun­da­tion es­tab­lished dur­ing con­struc­tion, com­bin­ing high lev­els of au­toma­tion with scal­able data in­fra­struc­ture to sup­port fu­ture dig­i­tal ap­pli­ca­tions. ABB will also de­liver its ABB Abil­ity™ Sys­tem 800xA® dis­trib­uted con­trol sys­tem, safety in­stru­mented sys­tem, gas de­tec­tion sys­tem, ABB Abil­ity™ Field In­for­ma­tion Man­ager and op­er­a­tor train­ing sim­u­la­tor.

“Our goal is to build a highly au­to­mated chem­i­cal fa­cil­ity with a strong dig­i­tal foun­da­tion that sup­ports safe, ef­fi­cient and re­li­able op­er­a­tions, while en­abling more au­tonomous ways of work­ing over time,” said LongHui Yang, Chair­man at Longx­i­ang Hengyu Chem­i­cal Co., Ltd. “ABB’s ex­per­tise in Eth­er­net-APL tech­nol­ogy, com­bined with its in­te­grated au­toma­tion and dig­i­tal so­lu­tions, will help us im­prove plant-wide vis­i­bil­ity and re­duce op­er­a­tional com­plex­ity.”

Early en­gage­ment by ABB helped de­fine the plant’s au­toma­tion and dig­i­tal ar­chi­tec­ture, en­sur­ing con­sis­tency from con­cept through to im­ple­men­ta­tion across mul­ti­ple stake­hold­ers. The dig­i­tal layer in­cludes a lo­cal­ized In­dus­trial In­ter­net of Things (IIoT) Edge plat­form and equip­ment man­age­ment ap­pli­ca­tion tai­lored to Longx­i­angHengyu Chem­i­cal Co., Ltd’s op­er­a­tional re­quire­ments, sup­port­ing fu­ture ad­vanced dig­i­tal use cases.

“This large-scale pro­ject demon­strates how ad­vanced au­toma­tion and dig­i­tal­iza­tion can sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of a more in­tel­li­gent and trans­for­ma­tive chem­i­cal fa­cil­ity,” said Tony Fan, Vice Pres­i­dent, ABB’s En­ergy In­dus­tries di­vi­sion in China. “By de­ploy­ing Eth­er­net-APL as the field com­mu­ni­ca­tion back­bone to sup­port dig­i­tal ap­pli­ca­tions, we are en­abling a smart plant with im­proved per­for­mance, en­hanced in­sight, re­li­a­bil­ity and a strong foun­da­tion for dri­ving in­creas­ingly au­tonomous op­er­a­tions.”

AW-Lake and KEM Flow Mea­sure­ment an­nounced that the two com­pa­nies are for­mally com­ing to­gether as one or­ga­ni­za­tion, mark­ing an im­por­tant mile­stone in the evo­lu­tion of two re­spected names in in­dus­trial flow mea­sure­ment.

The merger builds on more than 40 years of col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween AW-Lake and KEM Flow Mea­sure­ment. As sis­ter com­pa­nies under TASI Mea­sure­ment, KEM Flow Mea­sure­ment in Ger­many and AW-Lake in the United States have long worked closely to­gether to de­liver the same prod­ucts, qual­ity, per­for­mance, and tech­ni­cal sup­port cus­tomers rely on across de­mand­ing in­dus­trial ap­pli­ca­tions.

Cus­tomers will ben­e­fit from ex­panded en­gi­neer­ing re­sources, deeper ap­pli­ca­tion ex­per­tise, broader flow mea­sure­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ties, and stronger global sup­port. By bring­ing to­gether the strengths of AW-Lake and KEM Flow Mea­sure­ment, the com­bined or­ga­ni­za­tion is bet­ter equipped to help cus­tomers solve com­plex mea­sure­ment chal­lenges while con­tin­u­ing to de­liver the qual­ity, re­spon­sive­ness, and tech­ni­cal guid­ance they rely on. 

“This merger brings to­gether two or­ga­ni­za­tions with com­ple­men­tary strengths and a long his­tory of work­ing to­gether suc­cess­fully.” stated Georg Hap­pach, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, KEM Flow Mea­sure­ment. “By align­ing more closely as one busi­ness, we are cre­at­ing a stronger global foun­da­tion for long-term growth. It is an im­por­tant step that will allow us to serve our cus­tomers with broader ca­pa­bil­i­ties and a clearer, more uni­fied di­rec­tion for the fu­ture.”

As part of the tran­si­tion, the com­bined or­ga­ni­za­tion will pro­gres­sively align under the KEM Flow Mea­sure­ment brand, while con­tin­u­ing to build on the strong her­itage, ex­per­tise, and cus­tomer re­la­tion­ships es­tab­lished by AW-Lake. This evo­lu­tion re­flects the next stage in align­ing the or­ga­ni­za­tions under one uni­fied global brand while build­ing on the strengths, ex­per­tise, and trusted re­la­tion­ships that both com­pa­nies have es­tab­lished.

Over the com­ing months, cus­tomers and part­ners will begin to see up­dated brand­ing fea­tur­ing both AW-Lake and KEM Flow Mea­sure­ment as the or­ga­ni­za­tion moves to­ward one uni­fied brand. 

With a stronger global foot­print, ex­panded tech­ni­cal re­sources, and a uni­fied com­mit­ment to cus­tomer suc­cess, the merged or­ga­ni­za­tion is po­si­tioned to be­come a global cen­ter of ex­cel­lence in in­dus­trial flow mea­sure­ment — de­liv­er­ing high-per­for­mance so­lu­tions, deep ap­pli­ca­tion ex­per­tise, and re­li­able sup­port to cus­tomers.
 

Build­ing on ear­lier multi-ven­dor test­ing, the new setup ex­pands the focus from in­stru­men­ta­tion den­sity to ar­chi­tec­tural breadth. For the first time, a Yoko­gawa CEN­TUM VP dis­trib­uted con­trol sys­tem (DCS) and Plant Re­source Man­ager asset man­age­ment sys­tem were in­te­grated into a large-scale Eth­er­net-APL PROFINET test en­vi­ron­ment, along­side a broader com­bi­na­tion of field de­vices, switches and net­work in­fra­struc­ture. The test took place at En­dress+Hauser Dig­i­tal So­lu­tions in Reinach, Switzer­land in May 2026.

Focus on ar­chi­tec­ture scal­a­bil­ity under re­al­is­tic con­di­tions 

While pre­vi­ous tests con­firmed Eth­er­net-APL readi­ness under full-load con­di­tions, this one fo­cused on scal­a­bil­ity across more com­plex plant ar­chi­tec­tures. In ad­di­tion to peak-load val­i­da­tion, the test scope was ex­tended to in­clude a multi-day sta­bil­ity test phase, as­sess­ing sus­tained net­work be­hav­ior under re­al­is­tic op­er­at­ing con­di­tions. 

“The suc­cess­ful re­sults of this fifth large-scale test give users con­fi­dence in the ma­tu­rity, scal­a­bil­ity and flex­i­bil­ity which Eth­er­net-APL of­fers in real-world, multi-ven­dor ar­chi­tec­tures,” said Karl Büttner, Ad­vanced Ex­pert Prod­uct Man­age­ment at En­dress+Hauser. 
 
The test en­vi­ron­ment in­cluded: 

• Multi-ring Ethernet-APL topologies  

• A broader mix of infrastructure components 

• Cross-vendor system integration including DCS, switches and field devices

• Validation of asset management access across multiple rings using a private VLAN architecture 

Multi-ven­dor in­te­gra­tion ex­tended 

The suc­cess­ful in­te­gra­tion of the Yoko­gawa CEN­TUM VP sys­tem broad­ens the scope of val­i­dated DCS en­vi­ron­ments for Eth­er­net-APL. At the same time, the in­clu­sion of ad­di­tional in­fra­struc­ture com­po­nents, in­clud­ing Eth­er­net-APL switches and higher-level net­work el­e­ments, fur­ther demon­strates in­ter­op­er­abil­ity across a grow­ing ecosys­tem. 

With Cove­stro lead­ing the test and BASF con­tribut­ing prior test ex­pe­ri­ence, two global chem­i­cal pro­duc­ers have now ac­tively val­i­dated Eth­er­net-APL tech­nol­ogy under scal­able, re­al­is­tic con­di­tions. 

This re­flects in­creas­ing in­ter­est in Eth­er­net-based field com­mu­ni­ca­tion to sup­port dig­i­tal­iza­tion ini­tia­tives that re­quire con­sis­tent data ac­cess, sys­tem in­ter­op­er­abil­ity and life­cy­cle trans­parency. 

"Eth­er­net-APL is a key el­e­ment on our dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney – it ex­tends high-speed com­mu­ni­ca­tion into the field, un­lock­ing the data trans­parency and con­nec­tiv­ity needed to fully dig­i­tal­ize our op­er­a­tions. Tak­ing an ac­tive role in this scal­a­bil­ity test al­lowed us to val­i­date the tech­nol­ogy under con­di­tions that closely re­flect the com­plex­ity of our real pro­duc­tion en­vi­ron­ments. The re­sults give us greater con­fi­dence in the tech­nol­ogy's readi­ness for de­ploy­ment in large-scale in­dus­trial en­vi­ron­ments,” said Se­bas­t­ian Mahler, Vice Pres­i­dent, Head of Process Con­trol Tech­nol­ogy, Cove­stro.

“In 2023, BASF suc­cess­fully demon­strated scal­a­bil­ity with 240 PROFINET over APL de­vices con­nected in a sin­gle Eth­er­net ring, using ten field switches and con­trol sys­tems from ABB, Hon­ey­well, and Siemens. Emer­son was added in 2025. With the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the lat­est tests, we can now con­firm that Yoko­gawa also demon­strated scal­a­bil­ity in 2026 as part of a test led by Cove­stro and con­ducted at En­dress+Hauser in Reinach, Switzer­land,” said Gerd Nie­der­mayer, Se­nior E&I En­gi­neer­ing Man­ager at BASF.  

Net­work setup overview

In­ter­op­er­abil­ity was val­i­dated across the con­trol sys­tem layer, field de­vices, Eth­er­net-APL switches and net­work in­fra­struc­ture com­po­nents. The test setup in­cluded a Yoko­gawa CEN­TUM VP dis­trib­uted con­trol sys­tem (DCS) with Plant Re­source Man­ager (PRM), En­dress+Hauser APL field in­stru­ments and Sam­son APL field po­si­tion­ers, as well as Eth­er­net-APL switches from R. Stahl, Soft­ing, Phoenix Con­tact and Pep­perl+Fuchs. Net­work in­fra­struc­ture com­po­nents com­prised a Hirschmann switch with a pri­vate VLAN for asset man­age­ment ac­cess across rings and Siemens SCALANCE switches op­er­at­ing as Media Re­dun­dancy Pro­to­col (MRP) man­ager. 

Industrial conveyor belts are the backbone of mining, manufacturing, logistics and many other process industries. Yet unexpected failures in rollers, belts, motors or bearings can bring entire production lines to a halt, resulting in significant operational losses, safety risks and expensive maintenance interventions. 

To address this challenge, ennomotive, the global open innovation platform for engineering, has launched an international competition to identify innovative monitoring and predictive maintenance solutions capable of continuously assessing conveyor belt health and anticipating failures before they occur.

The initiative addresses a real operational challenge faced by CMPC, one of the world's leading pulp and paper companies. Conveyor belt failures can interrupt production, increase maintenance costs and reduce plant availability across large-scale industrial operations. Improving the early detection of anomalies has therefore become a strategic priority for increasing reliability and operational efficiency. 

The winning solution will be validated in production environment

The challenge seeks proposals combining industrial sensors, computer vision, artificial intelligence, machine learning, edge computing, digital twins or any other advanced technology capable of improving the reliability, availability and maintenance efficiency of conveyor systems. Solutions may range from commercially available technologies adapted to this application to entirely new approaches for condition monitoring and predictive analytics. 

The competition is open worldwide to technology companies, scaleups, research centres and engineering firms with expertise in artificial intelligence, industrial automation, predictive maintenance, IoT or related fields.

This is an opportunity to become a technology supplier to one of the world's leading pulp and paper companies, with manufacturing operations in Chile, Brazil, Argentina and other countries. The winning solution will begin with a validation project at one of CMPC's industrial facilities, with the potential for future large-scale deployment. 

Participation:

Interested participants should register at www.ennomotive.com, join the challenge and submit their proposal before August 4, 2026. Full technical information, evaluation criteria and participation requirements are available on the challenge page: https://www.ennomotive.com/challenge/ai-powered-conveyor-belt-monitoring-and-predictive-maintenance/

About:
ennomotive is the leading open innovation platform that connects companies with engineers and startups from all over the world to solve technology and engineering challenges. Companies post their challenges as a kind of contests on the platform and rewards the best solutions with cash prizes, projects and recognition.

The platform operates in Europe and Latin America with customers from diverse industries such as automotive, energy, mining, construction, manufacturing and others. Since 2015 ennomotive has organized +100 global challenges related to mechanical engineering, electrical, energy and water, 3D printing, IoT, satellite, AI, new materials, etc.

An­other key suc­cess fac­tor is the close in­te­gra­tion with com­ple­men­tary tech­nolo­gies. Par­tic­u­larly note­wor­thy is the lead­ing in­te­gra­tion of IO-Link, which en­ables ef­fi­cient and end-to-end sen­sor-ac­tu­a­tor com­mu­ni­ca­tion and con­tributes sig­nif­i­cantly to joint mar­ket suc­cess. PROFINET also plays a cen­tral role in the im­ple­men­ta­tion of Eth­er­net-APL: the first real-world process plants are al­ready suc­cess­fully in op­er­a­tion with PROFINET over APL. In par­al­lel, PI is ac­tively dri­ving the use of SPE and is also play­ing a key role in shap­ing tech­no­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ment in this area.

PROFINET also sets stan­dards in the field of ver­ti­cal in­te­gra­tion. Ex­ten­sive map­pings to OPC UA en­able stan­dard­ized and se­man­ti­cally en­riched data pro­vi­sion across the en­tire au­toma­tion pyra­mid. In ad­di­tion, the in­te­gra­tion of robot in­ter­faces via SRCI (Stan­dard Robot Com­mand In­ter­face) opens up new pos­si­bil­i­ties in a rapidly grow­ing mar­ket seg­ment.

PROFINET al­ready sup­ports spe­cific use cases along the en­tire data value chain — from sim­ple data ac­qui­si­tion to use in AI-based analy­ses. The abil­ity to pro­vide real-time com­mu­ni­ca­tion in par­al­lel with stan­dard Eth­er­net (TCP/IP) is be­com­ing in­creas­ingly im­por­tant. It al­lows di­rect and straight­for­ward ac­cess to plant data with­out plac­ing ad­di­tional strain on con­trollers or hav­ing to in­ter­vene dur­ing op­er­a­tion. Typ­i­cal use cases range from asset track­ing and con­di­tion mon­i­tor­ing to the se­cure and struc­tured pro­vi­sion of data for re­port­ing, op­ti­miza­tion, and fu­ture AI ap­pli­ca­tions.

This open­ness and flex­i­bil­ity are fur­ther sup­ported by scal­able net­work struc­tures, such as the tar­geted use of Gi­ga­bit com­mu­ni­ca­tion at par­tic­u­larly data-in­ten­sive points. At the same time, PROFINET re­mains true to its core strength: con­sis­tent com­pat­i­bil­ity across gen­er­a­tions.

“Omdia’s reaf­fir­ma­tion of our mar­ket lead­er­ship is clear ev­i­dence of PROFINET’s sus­tain­able in­no­v­a­tive strength and fu­ture vi­a­bil­ity,” says Xaver Schmidt, chair­man of PROFIBUS and PROFINET In­ter­na­tional (PI). “It is pre­cisely the com­bi­na­tion of open­ness, in­te­gra­tion, and tech­no­log­i­cal depth that makes PROFINET the ideal plat­form for the au­toma­tion of today and to­mor­row.”

PCN Eu­rope: The new ABB IE6 mo­tors pro­vide an op­por­tu­nity to up­grade zone 1 and zone 2 ap­pli­ca­tions. In which in­dus­try and for which ap­pli­ca­tions will they be used? And what are the power rat­ings the new mo­tors cover?
David Haw­ley: The ap­pli­ca­tion scope for these high-ef­fi­ciency mo­tors using syn­chro­nous re­luc­tance motor tech­nol­ogy (SynRM) is very broad. We see strong rel­e­vance across many in­dus­try seg­ments, par­tic­u­larly those where haz­ardous areas such as Zone 1 and Zone 2 are com­mon. In haz­ardous areas, safety and re­li­a­bil­ity are non-ne­go­tiable. Pro­tect­ing peo­ple and en­sur­ing safe, con­tin­u­ous op­er­a­tion is a key pri­or­ity. This is es­pe­cially true when it comes to spec­i­fy­ing haz­ardous areas mo­tors that must op­er­ate safely in en­vi­ron­ments where flam­ma­ble gases, dust, or vapours can be pre­sent - so they are crit­i­cal for in­dus­tries like oil & gas, chem­i­cals, ma­rine, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, and food & bev­er­age.

For ex­am­ple, the oil and gas sec­tor – across up­stream ex­trac­tion, pipeline trans­port, and down­stream re­fin­ing – re­lies on a sub­stan­tial in­stalled base of mo­tors op­er­at­ing in haz­ardous areas. The chem­i­cal in­dus­try is an­other major user, as many processes in­volve gases, va­pors, or pow­ders that cre­ate haz­ardous en­vi­ron­ments.

We are also see­ing in­creas­ing de­mand in the ma­rine sec­tor, par­tic­u­larly for gas trans­porta­tion. The grow­ing move­ment of liq­ue­fied gases glob­ally has dri­ven the need for re­li­able ex­plo­sion proof motor so­lu­tions on­board ves­sels. In­dus­tries such as phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and food and bev­er­age might also de­mand haz­ardous area so­lu­tions – for ex­am­ple in ap­pli­ca­tions in­volv­ing com­bustible dusts such as in milling processes for sugar or grain.

In terms of ap­pli­ca­tions, these mo­tors can power pumps, fans, com­pres­sors, and mix­ers across these in­dus­tries – es­sen­tially where con­tin­u­ous op­er­a­tion and high re­li­a­bil­ity and safety are crit­i­cal.

In terms of power rat­ings, ABB’s SynRM haz­ardous area mo­tors port­fo­lio spans a wide range – from 0.75 kW up to 400 kW – though the ef­fi­ciency gains are most pro­nounced at higher rat­ings, a nat­ural con­se­quence of motor de­sign. This is re­flected in the port­fo­lio it­self: the new IE6 motor cov­ers 110 kW to 400 kW, while IE5 ver­sions are avail­able up to 90 kW.

PCN Eu­rope: Okay, thank you. How sig­nif­i­cant are the po­ten­tial en­ergy sav­ings? What other ben­e­fits can users ex­pect in terms of the total cost of own­er­ship?
David Haw­ley: This is the world’s first IE6 mag­net- and rare earth- free motor fully com­pli­ant for Zones 1 and 2 and cer­ti­fied to ATEX and IECEx re­quire­ments. Cer­ti­fied for use with vari­able speed dri­ves (VSDs), it of­fers ac­cu­rate con­trol and high ef­fi­ciency through­out the whole speed range even at par­tial loads. With up to 60% lower en­ergy losses than the IE3 in­duc­tion mo­tors in com­mon use, op­er­a­tors switch­ing to IE6 can achieve a major boost in en­ergy ef­fi­ciency and avoid car­bon emis­sions.

Re­gard­ing the TCO, it is im­por­tant to note that the ini­tial pur­chase price of a motor rep­re­sents only a small frac­tion of its total cost of own­er­ship (TCO) through­out its op­er­at­ing life. Around 97% of the motor’s life­cy­cle cost stems from the en­ergy it uses – mean­ing that op­er­a­tors that sig­nif­i­cantly re­duce their en­ergy use by adopt­ing high ef­fi­ciency so­lu­tions, like the IE6 SynRM, can boost their pro­duc­tiv­ity with pay­back often achieved in a mat­ter of months.

To give a con­crete ex­am­ple – over a typ­i­cal 20-year ser­vice life, the en­ergy sav­ings from switch­ing just one 110 kW IE3 in­duc­tion motor up to IE6 would be €87,520, re­sult­ing in an eight-month pay­back pe­riod with 157,540 kg CO₂ avoided. That’s the equiv­a­lent of 37 gaso­line pow­ered pas­sen­ger cars dri­ven for a year. Note that this cal­cu­la­tion is based on the motor op­er­at­ing 8,760 hours/year at 75% av­er­age load, with an as­sumed en­ergy cost of €0.20/kWh. These fig­ures show the im­pact of up­grad­ing just one motor to higher ef­fi­ciency. But many haz­ardous areas in­stal­la­tions use hun­dreds or even thou­sands of mo­tors, so the global en­ergy sav­ing po­ten­tial is huge. 

SynRM ben­e­fits ex­tend be­yond en­ergy ef­fi­ciency. As well as in­creased re­li­a­bil­ity and re­duced main­te­nance, SynRM tech­nol­ogy en­ables a more cost-ef­fec­tive in­stal­la­tion. In Zone 1, cooler run­ning can allow the use of a SynRM In­creased safety motor where a Flame­proof motor with a spe­cial en­clo­sure would be the tra­di­tional choice. In Zone 2, the im­proved load­abil­ity of SynRM mo­tors al­lows more power to be de­liv­ered from the same size as an equiv­a­lent in­duc­tion motor. This could en­able a smaller, lower-cost motor to ful­fil the same duty.

Flex­i­bil­ity is also key. We have adopted a flex­i­ble ap­proach to de­vel­op­ing our haz­ardous areas mo­tors port­fo­lio to com­bine ro­bust con­struc­tion, high en­ergy ef­fi­ciency, and re­li­able op­er­a­tion to de­liver trusted per­for­mance and cer­ti­fied safety in the most de­mand­ing en­vi­ron­ments. This cov­ers a wide range of pro­tec­tion types, tem­per­a­ture classes, and en­clo­sure op­tions. In ad­di­tion to SynRM haz­ardous area mo­tors, ABB’s port­fo­lio also in­cludes in­duc­tion al­ter­na­tives up to IE4 ef­fi­ciency level, such as Flame­proof mo­tors, In­creased safety in­duc­tion mo­tors and Dust Ig­ni­tion proof mo­tors.

But motor tech­nol­ogy is only part of our ap­proach. We have an ex­pert team with decades of ex­pe­ri­ence who work with our cus­tomers to cre­ate cus­tomized so­lu­tions for even the most chal­leng­ing en­vi­ron­ments.

PCN Eu­rope: Thank you. So you al­ready an­swered what I wanted to ask next, about these ben­e­fits. You also can say, with the syn­chro­nous re­luc­tance tech­nol­ogy you men­tioned, an­other ben­e­fit is that the cus­tomers have mo­tors with­out mag­nets and rare earth met­als in it. So given the sup­ply chain chal­lenges of last year's, that is def­i­nitely an­other ben­e­fit.
David Haw­ley: Def­i­nitely, that is an im­por­tant as­pect. As man­u­fac­tur­ers, we are aware of the chal­lenges as­so­ci­ated with per­ma­nent mag­net ma­te­ri­als, in­clud­ing sup­ply chain con­straints and broader sus­tain­abil­ity con­sid­er­a­tions.

SynRM mo­tors achieve high ef­fi­ciency with­out the use of per­ma­nent mag­nets, a sig­nif­i­cant ad­vn­tage when nav­i­gat­ing these chal­lenges. At the same time, per­ma­nent mag­net motor tech­nol­ogy re­mains an im­por­tant part of the over­all port­fo­lio and is used where it is most ap­pro­pri­ate. Se­lect­ing the right tech­nol­ogy for the spe­cific ap­pli­ca­tion is the key.

PCN Eu­rope: What would be your rec­om­men­da­tion on mod­ern­iza­tion of mo­tors? How fast should com­pa­nies think about chang­ing the motor tech­nol­ogy in their ap­pli­ca­tions, even if they don't have ob­vi­ous op­er­a­tional prob­lems?
David Haw­ley: Tra­di­tion­ally, many users con­sider up­grad­ing motor sys­tems only when equip­ment reaches end of life or re­quires major main­te­nance, such as rewind­ing or re­fur­bish­ment.

But there is a sig­nif­i­cant in­stalled base of older mo­tors that are still op­er­a­tional yet do not meet the ef­fi­ciency lev­els achiev­able with mod­ern de­signs. In high-duty ap­pli­ca­tions, these mo­tors can open up a real op­por­tu­nity for en­ergy sav­ings.

Through en­ergy as­sess­ments and sys­tem eval­u­a­tions, we can pin­point where up­grades, whether motor-only or motor-drive com­bi­na­tions, can de­liver tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits. Not all mo­tors are suit­able can­di­dates; for ex­am­ple, mo­tors that op­er­ate only in­ter­mit­tently will typ­i­cally have longer pay­back pe­ri­ods.

How­ever, for con­tin­u­ously op­er­at­ing sys­tems, up­grad­ing to high-ef­fi­ciency motor tech­nolo­gies can re­sult in rel­a­tively short pay­back pe­ri­ods – often in months – de­pend­ing on op­er­at­ing con­di­tions.

Be­yond en­ergy sav­ings, mod­ern mo­tors also offer im­proved re­li­a­bil­ity, longer ser­vice in­ter­vals, and re­duced main­te­nance re­quire­ments, sup­port­ing more sus­tain­able and cost-ef­fec­tive op­er­a­tions.

PCN Eu­rope: So the mes­sage is at the end, you not only have the right hard­ware, you also have the ser­vice to sup­port po­ten­tial cus­tomers to make the right de­ci­sion. That sounds re­ally in­ter­est­ing and good news for cus­tomers. Thank you, David.

The switch from clas­sic metal gear­boxes to worm gear screw jacks made of high-per­for­mance plas­tic from the drygear Apiro se­ries promises sev­eral ad­van­tages: re­duced costs, lower weight and no need for lu­bri­ca­tion. How­ever, many de­sign en­gi­neers were not able to make this tran­si­tion be­cause the op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ments were too harsh and de­mand­ing. With the drygear Apiro HD, igus is now pre­sent­ing a hybrid solu­tion that closes pre­cisely this gap. 

For sim­ple ad­just­ment tasks, metal gear­boxes can be over­sized, heavy, main­te­nance-in­ten­sive and ex­pen­sive. One al­ter­na­tive is the mod­u­lar gear­box sys­tem Apiro from igus. De­sign en­gi­neers can use its joints, drive units and gear­boxes, most of which are made of high-per­for­mance plas­tics, to cre­ate light­weight, cost-ef­fec­tive, lu­bri­ca­tion-free au­toma­tion so­lu­tions. These in­clude sim­ple pusher sys­tems for ma­te­r­ial han­dling and for­mat ad­just­ment sys­tems for the food and bev­er­age in­dus­try. 

Up to 70kg load

The new zinc die-cast­ing hous­ing has in­creased the load ca­pac­ity of the gear­box. The more rigid hous­ing ma­te­r­ial al­lows a me­chan­i­cal load of up to 70kg and a dy­namic load of the gear­box of up to 25kg. The new hous­ing re­sponds to in­creased re­quire­ments in for­mat ad­just­ment and safe­guards the func­tion against me­chan­i­cal im­pacts. Zinc die-cast­ing is also more cost-ef­fec­tive to pro­duce than alu­minium or steel. The ma­te­r­ial is char­ac­terised by its high strength and cor­ro­sion re­sis­tance. Thanks to its low melt­ing point, zinc is very easy to process and per­mits par­tic­u­larly pre­cise, di­men­sion­ally ac­cu­rate pro­duc­tion. This re­duces both the en­ergy re­quire­ment and the ef­fort re­quired for post-pro­cess­ing. The plas­tic worm gear with a 4:1 ratio con­tin­ues to op­er­ate in­side this hy­brid ver­sion, so that it re­mains free from lu­bri­ca­tion and main­te­nance. 

With NXD tupH®, NORD DRI­VESYS­TEMS has de­vel­oped an ef­fec­tive and food-safe sur­face pro­tec­tion es­pe­cially for alu­minium hous­ings. The re­spec­tive gear units, smooth mo­tors and de­cen­tralised fre­quency in­vert­ers be­come par­tic­u­larly cor­ro­sion-re­sis­tant and with­stand ex­ten­sive clean­ing pro­ce­dures in food pro­cess­ing in­dus­tries over the long term. NXD means “NORD eX­treme Duty”; tupH com­bines the Eng­lish terms “tough” and “pH-value”.

Test proves chem­i­cal re­sis­tance

NXD tupH® com­bines a spe­cial sur­face treat­ment with a high-per­for­mance sealer. The re­sult is a non-porous sur­face that can be cleaned hy­gien­i­cally and nei­ther flakes off nor cor­rodes after nu­mer­ous clean­ing cy­cles. NXD tupH® has proven its chem­i­cal re­sis­tance in a long-term test, in­clud­ing the use of Eco­lab clean­ing agents. NORD drive com­po­nents with NXD tupH® sur­faces are fur­ther­more food-safe in ac­cor­dance with the re­quire­ments of the FDA, EU and Switzer­land as well as the MER­CO­SUR states. They are suit­able for food-con­tact ap­pli­ca­tions in the fields of food & bev­er­age and pri­mary pack­ag­ing.

Eco­nom­i­cal al­ter­na­tive to stain­less steel dri­ves

This pro­vides an eco­nom­i­cal and pow­er­ful al­ter­na­tive to stain­less steel dri­ves for users. Drive so­lu­tions with alu­minium hous­ings are more light­weight and allow for com­pact de­sign. Since alu­minium dis­si­pates heat well, a higher power den­sity and lower sur­face tem­per­a­tures can be achieved. With NXD tupH®, alu­minium hous­ings now also be­come chem­i­cal-re­sis­tant, mak­ing the drive so­lu­tions durable and in­creas­ing the sys­tem avail­abil­ity in wash-down ap­pli­ca­tions. The sur­face pro­tec­tion from NORD does not re­quire any spe­cial de­sign and thus no sep­a­rate ware­hous­ing and in­stal­la­tion costs. The man­u­fac­turer ap­plies its sur­face treat­ment to ex­ist­ing com­po­nents. This way, it can use the op­tions of its mod­u­lar prod­ucts for the drive sys­tem de­sign, and sup­ply tai­lor-made NXD tupH® drive sys­tems com­pletely from a sin­gle source.

NXD tupH® is avail­able for all NORD alu­minium prod­ucts with a smooth sur­face, in­clud­ing the in­te­grated Duo­Drive gear unit / motor sys­tem, the en­ergy-ef­fi­cient IE5+ smooth mo­tors as well as NORD­BLOC.1® he­li­cal in-line gear units and NORD­BLOC.1® he­li­cal bevel gear units. Fur­ther­more, with NOR­DAC ON PURE, a de­cen­tralised fre­quency in­verter with NXD tupH® sur­face will be avail­able soon. 
 

 For the process in­dus­try, this pre­sents a par­tic­u­lar chal­lenge. In hardly any other in­dus­trial sec­tor are plants as long-lived. Field de­vices, mea­sur­ing points, Ex com­po­nents, and bus in­fra­struc­tures often re­main in op­er­a­tion for 10, 20, or more years. Many of these sys­tems are still based on proven and ro­bust field­bus tech­nolo­gies such as PROFIBUS PA and PROFIBUS DP, which were not de­vel­oped ac­cord­ing to mod­ern se­cu­rity-by-de­sign prin­ci­ples.

PROFIBUS DP is pri­mar­ily used at the con­trol level, where dis­trib­uted con­trol sys­tems, PLCs, dri­ves, and fast I/O are con­nected. Via DP/PA links or seg­ment cou­plers, this level is con­nected to PROFIBUS PA seg­ments that host the field de­vices, which are often in­stalled across large plant areas or in haz­ardous zones. This has re­sulted in a ro­bust, his­tor­i­cally grown com­mu­ni­ca­tion ar­chi­tec­ture that today re­quires ad­di­tional se­cu­rity mech­a­nisms to ad­dress mod­ern cyber threats.

In ad­di­tion to cy­ber­se­cu­rity re­quire­ments, ex­pec­ta­tions re­gard­ing dig­i­tal in­te­gra­tion are also in­creas­ing. Data must be re­li­ably in­te­grated into con­trol sys­tems, asset man­age­ment plat­forms, or IIoT an­a­lyt­ics so­lu­tions. This re­quires not only se­cure but also con­tin­u­ously avail­able ac­cess to all rel­e­vant op­er­a­tional, di­ag­nos­tic, and con­fig­u­ra­tion data of the plant.

As a re­sult, the de­mand for mod­ern, se­cure, and cost-ef­fi­cient so­lu­tions that meet grow­ing re­quire­ments for dig­i­tal in­te­gra­tion and eco­nom­i­cal plant op­er­a­tion is steadily in­creas­ing.

De­clin­ing Sup­port for DP/PA Cou­plers and Strate­gic Shift To­ward PROFINET

The DP/PA cou­plers still used in many plants today serve as the link be­tween the con­trol level (DP) and the field level (PA). Their pri­mary func­tion is to con­vert the elec­tri­cal and com­mu­ni­ca­tion char­ac­ter­is­tics be­tween the RS-485-based DP net­work and the MBP (Man­ches­ter Bus Pow­ered) tech­nol­ogy used in PA seg­ments. 

How­ever, tra­di­tional DP/PA cou­plers were not de­signed to meet the re­quire­ments of mod­ern au­toma­tion and safety con­cepts. As a re­sult, key re­quire­ments such as cy­ber­se­cu­rity, re­dun­dancy, flex­i­ble pa­ra­me­ter­i­za­tion, cen­tral­ized di­ag­nos­tics, and seam­less dig­i­tal in­te­gra­tion can only be sup­ported to a lim­ited ex­tent—if at all.

At the same time, it is be­com­ing ap­par­ent across the in­dus­try that tra­di­tional cou­plers are reach­ing tech­no­log­i­cal and reg­u­la­tory lim­its. Fur­ther de­vel­op­ment is often no longer eco­nom­i­cally vi­able, and long-term avail­abil­ity is not guar­an­teed.

Against this back­drop, the shift from PROFIBUS DP to PROFINET is gain­ing mo­men­tum as a re­li­able way to meet grow­ing se­cu­rity and dig­i­tal­iza­tion re­quire­ments.

As an Eth­er­net-based ar­chi­tec­ture, PROFINET of­fers clear ad­van­tages. These in­clude higher band­width, mod­ern re­dun­dancy mech­a­nisms such as MRP and sys­tem re­dun­dancy (S2), and net­work-based se­cu­rity con­cepts. In ad­di­tion, PROFINET en­ables seam­less in­te­gra­tion across all lev­els and sim­pli­fies life­cy­cle man­age­ment through stan­dard­ized up­date and main­te­nance processes.

As a re­sult, PROFINET ef­fec­tively meets the re­quire­ments placed on mod­ern au­toma­tion ar­chi­tec­tures by the CRA and on­go­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion.

Mod­ern­iz­ing Step by Step with a PA Gate­way – Se­curely and With­out In­ter­ven­ing at the Field Level

For many op­er­a­tors, how­ever, one thing is clear: a com­plete re­place­ment of ex­ist­ing PA field de­vices is not re­al­is­tic. What is needed is a so­lu­tion that pre­serves ex­ist­ing PROFIBUS PA seg­ments while en­abling a mod­ern PROFINET-based con­trol ar­chi­tec­ture.

The pn­Gate PA from Soft­ing In­dus­trial can pro­vide a so­lu­tion here. The gate­way en­ables the di­rect in­te­gra­tion of PROFIBUS PA into PROFINET con­trollers and pro­vides PA mas­ter func­tion­al­ity with­out ad­di­tional in­ter­me­di­ate lay­ers. Mul­ti­ple PA seg­ments can be con­nected in par­al­lel, while both ex­ist­ing field de­vices and ex­ist­ing power con­di­tion­ers are still avail­able for use.

In ad­di­tion, pn­Gate PA sup­ports mod­ern re­dun­dancy con­cepts to in­crease plant avail­abil­ity and, thanks to Con­fig­u­ra­tion-in-Run, al­lows flex­i­ble ad­just­ments dur­ing on­go­ing op­er­a­tion. In­te­gra­tion into com­mon en­gi­neer­ing and asset man­age­ment tools sim­pli­fies pa­ra­me­ter­i­za­tion, di­ag­nos­tics, and main­te­nance, and im­proves trans­parency across the en­tire field level.

The key ad­van­tage: the ex­ist­ing PA in­fra­struc­ture re­mains fully in­tact, while mod­ern­iza­tion is fo­cused on the com­mu­ni­ca­tion and con­trol level. This al­lows for a grad­ual tran­si­tion to PROFINET with­out major changes at the field level.

Use Case: Step-by-Step Mod­ern­iza­tion of a Pro­duc­tion Plant

What this looks like in prac­tice is il­lus­trated by a prac­ti­cal use case from a process plant. A chem­i­cal op­er­a­tor with a large in­stalled base of PA field de­vices is fac­ing a mod­ern­iza­tion de­ci­sion. The ex­ist­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion in­fra­struc­ture re­lies on DP/PA cou­plers whose long-term avail­abil­ity is un­cer­tain. At the same time, in­ter­nal and reg­u­la­tory se­cu­rity re­quire­ments are in­creas­ing, and the com­pany aims to make greater use of process data for con­di­tion mon­i­tor­ing, con­trol sys­tem in­te­gra­tion, and en­ergy ef­fi­ciency analy­sis.

Chal­lenges in the ex­ist­ing in­stal­la­tion:

The ex­ist­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion ar­chi­tec­ture has evolved and is de­signed for high avail­abil­ity, but of­fers only lim­ited ca­pa­bil­i­ties for di­ag­nos­tics, scal­a­bil­ity, and se­cu­rity. Net­work-based ac­cess con­cepts and mod­ern se­cu­rity mech­a­nisms are lack­ing. The num­ber of field de­vices per seg­ment is also tech­ni­cally lim­ited, mak­ing ex­pan­sions more dif­fi­cult. Pa­ra­me­ter­i­za­tion and main­te­nance in­volve a high level of man­ual ef­fort, while re­dun­dancy and per­for­mance op­tions are avail­able to a lim­ited ex­tent. Over­all, the ex­ist­ing DP/PA struc­ture only par­tially meets today’s re­quire­ments for trans­parency, se­cu­rity, and data avail­abil­ity.

Mod­ern­iza­tion ob­jec­tives:

Against this back­drop, the op­er­a­tor de­fines clear mod­ern­iza­tion goals. The focus is on in­tro­duc­ing PROFINET as a con­sis­tent con­trol and com­mu­ni­ca­tion ar­chi­tec­ture with­out fun­da­men­tally re­plac­ing the ex­ist­ing field level. The ex­ist­ing PA field de­vices and the in­stalled ca­bling are to be re­tained to keep in­vest­ment costs and down­time low.

At the same time, cen­tral­ized en­gi­neer­ing, pa­ra­me­ter­i­za­tion, and asset man­age­ment con­cepts are to be es­tab­lished. In ad­di­tion, clean net­work seg­men­ta­tion, se­cure re­mote ac­cess op­tions, and long-term fu­ture vi­a­bil­ity in line with cur­rent reg­u­la­tory re­quire­ments – such as the Cyber Re­silience Act (CRA) – are re­quired.

Im­ple­mented so­lu­tion ap­proach:

The im­ple­men­ta­tion is car­ried out step by step to avoid im­pact­ing on­go­ing plant op­er­a­tions. Ini­tially, the ex­ist­ing DP/PA cou­plers are grad­u­ally re­placed with mod­ern PA gate­ways. These en­able the di­rect in­te­gra­tion of PA seg­ments into a PROFINET topol­ogy, mak­ing the field level more trans­par­ent and more closely in­te­grated with higher-level au­toma­tion and en­gi­neer­ing tools.

At the same time, the PA seg­ments are in­te­grated into ex­ist­ing asset man­age­ment and en­gi­neer­ing sys­tems, en­abling cen­tral­ized pa­ra­me­ter­i­za­tion, di­ag­nos­tics, and main­te­nance. For crit­i­cal plant areas, re­dun­dant com­mu­ni­ca­tion struc­tures are im­ple­mented to fur­ther in­crease avail­abil­ity. In ad­di­tion, this ap­proach opens up new pos­si­bil­i­ties for de­tailed di­ag­nos­tics, con­tin­u­ous mon­i­tor­ing, and the scal­able ex­pan­sion of fu­ture plant sec­tions.

Achieved added value:

The mod­ern­iza­tion de­liv­ers mul­ti­ple ben­e­fits for the op­er­a­tor. The new ar­chi­tec­ture meets key re­quire­ments of mod­ern reg­u­la­tions such as the CRA, par­tic­u­larly in terms of se­cure ac­cess, up­data­bil­ity, and trans­parency. At the same time, the avail­abil­ity of process and di­ag­nos­tic data im­proves sig­nif­i­cantly—for both day-to-day op­er­a­tions and main­te­nance, mon­i­tor­ing, and op­ti­miza­tion tasks. Re­dun­dant struc­tures and en­hanced di­ag­nos­tics in­crease plant avail­abil­ity, while stan­dard­ized en­gi­neer­ing tools re­duce en­gi­neer­ing and main­te­nance ef­fort. In ad­di­tion, re­tain­ing ex­ist­ing PA field de­vices and ca­bling helps to achieve sig­nif­i­cant cost sav­ings.

Over­all, the op­er­a­tor gains a mod­ern, scal­able, and cyber-re­silient com­mu­ni­ca­tion struc­ture with­out the need for major in­ter­ven­tions at the field level. The tran­si­tion re­mains man­age­able and can be im­ple­mented largely with­out spe­cial­ized IT ex­per­tise.

Cyber-Re­silient Process Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Through PA Gate­ways and PROFINET In­te­gra­tion

The Cyber Re­silience Act is ac­cel­er­at­ing tech­no­log­i­cal change in the process in­dus­try. At the same time, dig­i­tal­iza­tion is open­ing new po­ten­tial for trans­parency, ef­fi­ciency, and se­cu­rity.

Mod­ern PA gate­ways, such as the pn­Gate PA en­able op­er­a­tors to man­age this trans­for­ma­tion in a con­trolled, eco­nom­i­cal, and step-by-step man­ner. They con­nect the ro­bust world of ex­ist­ing PA field de­vices with the flex­i­ble, se­cure, and high-per­for­mance PROFINET ar­chi­tec­ture, mak­ing process plants fit for fu­ture tech­no­log­i­cal, reg­u­la­tory, and eco­nomic re­quire­ments.
 

Plas­tic is part of every­day life. It is used in pack­ag­ing, elec­tron­ics, ve­hi­cles, house­hold ap­pli­ances and count­less chem­i­cal prod­ucts. But once these prod­ucts be­come waste, the chal­lenge be­comes clear. A truly cir­cu­lar econ­omy for plas­tics is still dif­fi­cult to achieve. Me­chan­i­cal re­cy­cling works well when waste streams are clean and prop­erly sorted. Mixed or con­t­a­m­i­nated plas­tics are a dif­fer­ent mat­ter. Poly­olefins in par­tic­u­lar are used in huge quan­ti­ties, yet they are dif­fi­cult to re­cy­cle into high-qual­ity sec­ondary raw ma­te­ri­als. As a re­sult, many of these ma­te­ri­als never make it back into the pro­duc­tion cycle. They are in­cin­er­ated, used for en­ergy re­cov­ery or dis­posed of al­to­gether. At the same time, they rep­re­sent a valu­able re­source if they can be processed in a con­trolled and ef­fi­cient way. 

Chem­i­cal re­cy­cling of­fers a route back into the value chain for plas­tic waste that can­not be han­dled ef­fec­tively by me­chan­i­cal processes. But mov­ing from tech­ni­cal promise to re­li­able in­dus­trial op­er­a­tion is far from sim­ple. This is where enespa ag and En­dress+Hauser are work­ing to­gether. Their aim is to make py­rol­y­sis processes safer, more ef­fi­cient and more sus­tain­able.

Mea­sure­ment Tech­nol­ogy as the Back­bone of Process Sta­bil­ity

Based in Ap­pen­zell, Switzer­land, enespa ag de­vel­ops and op­er­ates plants for the chem­i­cal re­cy­cling of plas­tic waste. The com­pany uses py­rol­y­sis to con­vert poly­olefin-rich waste streams into high-qual­ity py­rol­y­sis oil. This oil can then be used by the petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­try as feed­stock to pro­duce new plas­tics.

In this way, enespa helps re­duce avoid­able green­house gas emis­sions, makes use of waste streams that have so far been dif­fi­cult to re­cy­cle, and con­tributes to a more cir­cu­lar use of re­sources. Run­ning the process is far from straight­for­ward. The main chal­lenge stems from the highly vari­able na­ture of the feed­stock. Plas­tic waste is rarely uni­form. Dif­fer­ent poly­mers, ad­di­tives and con­t­a­m­i­nants all be­have dif­fer­ently when ex­posed to heat, with vary­ing melt­ing and de­com­po­si­tion points. “We also have some ex­tremely de­mand­ing process con­di­tions in parts of our plant,” says Ju­lian Her­rmann, Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor at enespa ag.

Tem­per­a­tures of up to 400°C, pres­sure fluc­tu­a­tions in pipes and ves­sels, and chang­ing ma­te­r­ial states all come to­gether in a process where the feed­stock com­po­si­tion is con­stantly shift­ing. This makes py­rol­y­sis par­tic­u­larly sen­si­tive to process de­vi­a­tions. Even small de­vi­a­tions can dis­rupt re­ac­tions or af­fect whether the re­sult­ing py­rol­y­sis oil meets the re­quired spec­i­fi­ca­tions.

Down­time is an­other crit­i­cal fac­tor. Any in­ter­rup­tion can lead to com­plex clean­ing pro­ce­dures and time-con­sum­ing restart processes, re­duc­ing the ef­fi­ciency of the en­tire plant. For enespa, it soon be­came clear that sta­ble op­er­a­tion de­pends on con­tin­u­ous, ac­cu­rate mon­i­tor­ing of all rel­e­vant process pa­ra­me­ters.

Re­li­able Data Dri­ves Process Con­trol

En­dress+Hauser de­vel­oped a mea­sure­ment con­cept tai­lored to the process, cov­er­ing all crit­i­cal pa­ra­me­ters. Cer­abar PM­P71B mon­i­tors pres­sure in pipes and re­ac­tors and helps main­tain sta­bil­ity even when con­di­tions fluc­tu­ate. Tem­per­a­ture, one of the de­ci­sive fac­tors in py­rol­y­sis, is mea­sured by iTHERM TM131, which de­liv­ers re­li­able read­ings even under sus­tained high ther­mal stress.

In tanks and re­ac­tors, Lev­elflex FMP51 pro­vides con­tin­u­ous level mea­sure­ment, while Liquiphant FTL51B en­sures that crit­i­cal level lim­its are re­li­ably main­tained. Pro­line Prowirl F 200 mea­sures process flows, pro­vid­ing the data needed for ef­fec­tive process con­trol and op­ti­miza­tion.

To­gether, these mea­sure­ment points pro­vide a clear, con­tin­u­ous view of the process. This en­ables enespa to run its chem­i­cal re­cy­cling process in a sta­ble and re­pro­ducible way, even under chal­leng­ing con­di­tions.

From Process Data to Au­to­mated Con­trol

The real value of mea­sure­ment data lies in what is done with it. At enespa, read­ings are not sim­ply col­lected. They are processed in real time and trans­lated into con­trol ac­tions. This cre­ates a dig­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the plant and gives op­er­a­tors real-time vis­i­bil­ity into per­for­mance.

De­vi­a­tions can be de­tected early and cor­rected be­fore they af­fect prod­uct qual­ity or plant op­er­a­tion. As a re­sult, the sys­tem can re­spond to chang­ing con­di­tions be­fore they af­fect prod­uct qual­ity or plant per­for­mance. “En­dress+Hauser’s mea­sure­ment tech­nol­ogy has en­abled us to achieve a very high level of au­toma­tion. We have now reached a point where the plant can es­sen­tially be op­er­ated au­tonomously,” says Ju­lian Her­rmann.

Ef­fi­ciency as a Dri­ver of Sus­tain­abil­ity

Pre­cise mon­i­tor­ing and con­trol also have a di­rect im­pact on ef­fi­ciency and sus­tain­abil­ity. Every sta­ble process step re­duces losses, avoids un­nec­es­sary en­ergy con­sump­tion and helps use re­sources more ef­fec­tively. Tech­ni­cal pre­ci­sion there­fore cre­ates mea­sur­able value across the en­tire plant op­er­a­tion. Alexan­der Her­mann, Port­fo­lio Man­ager at En­dress+Hauser, sees this as an im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion to sus­tain­abil­ity: “Ul­ti­mately, sus­tain­abil­ity is also about using re­sources more ef­fi­ciently. Every im­prove­ment in process ef­fi­ciency helps re­duce waste and con­serve valu­able re­sources. Enespa is a strong ex­am­ple of this. Py­rol­y­sis makes it pos­si­ble to re­turn these ma­te­ri­als to the value chain.”

Mod­ern in­stru­men­ta­tion does far more than sim­ply mea­sure process vari­ables. It pro­vides the foun­da­tion for ef­fi­cient op­er­a­tions and is be­com­ing an in­creas­ingly im­por­tant en­abler of sus­tain­able in­dus­trial processes.
 

De­signed and man­u­fac­tured in Switzer­land, Swan’s water qual­ity analy­sers have a global rep­u­ta­tion for ac­cu­racy and long-term re­li­a­bil­ity, but as the com­pany’s John Sax­ton says: “The ac­cu­racy of a mea­sure­ment can only be as good as the qual­ity of the sam­ple, and this can be one of the more chal­leng­ing as­pects of waste­water mon­i­tor­ing. We have there­fore worked closely with spe­cial­ists in this field to de­velop the new Sam­ple Fil­tra­tion Cab­i­net, which com­bines the qual­ity of a Swan An­a­lyt­i­cal analyser with a best-in-class sam­pling sys­tem.”

Phos­phate is an es­sen­tial nu­tri­ent, and is nec­es­sary for ex­am­ple, in low con­cen­tra­tions in bi­o­log­i­cal waste­water treat­ment, but ex­ces­sive con­cen­tra­tions can cause sig­nif­i­cant eco­log­i­cal harm. It is there­fore com­mon for phos­phate to be in­cluded in en­vi­ron­men­tal per­mits at mu­nic­i­pal and in­dus­trial waste­water treat­ment plants.

Phos­phate can be re­moved from waste­water by dos­ing with pre­cip­i­tants such as Fer­ric Chlo­ride. How­ever, dos­ing to ex­cess can be very costly and in­ef­fi­cient, so it is com­mon prac­tice to con­tin­u­ously mon­i­tor phos­phate lev­els for dos­ing con­trol, and for demon­strat­ing dis­charge com­pli­ance. Swan’s on­line AMI Phos­phate in­stru­ments com­bined with the Sam­ple Fil­tra­tion Sys­tem, have been de­signed specif­i­cally for both ap­pli­ca­tions.

Back­ground

Phos­phate is a key nu­tri­ent in the main­te­nance of aquatic an­i­mal and plant life. How­ever, it is also con­sid­ered to be one of the most im­por­tant pol­lu­tants in sur­face wa­ters. Ex­ces­sive quan­ti­ties, through nat­ural ac­cu­mu­la­tion or de­rived from human ac­tiv­i­ties such as waste­water treat­ment and agri­cul­tural runoff, can stim­u­late the rapid growth of algae, re­sult­ing in algal blooms. This re­duces the amount of light avail­able for plants and can lead to oxy­gen de­ple­tion, bac­te­r­ial growth and eu­troph­i­ca­tion. In ad­di­tion, some algal blooms pro­duce tox­ins that are harm­ful to other or­gan­isms. High phos­phate con­cen­tra­tions can there­fore cause enor­mous eco­log­i­cal and aes­thetic dam­age to streams, lakes, rivers and oceans.

In Eng­land, the En­vi­ron­ment Act 2021 and the sup­ple­men­tary En­vi­ron­men­tal Tar­gets Reg­u­la­tions 2023 have set tar­gets for re­duc­ing the lev­els of phos­pho­rus, and other con­t­a­m­i­nants, that are re­leased into fresh and coastal wa­ters. As a con­se­quence, phos­phate lim­its in treated waste­water dis­charged into water courses are being tight­ened. 

Mon­i­tor­ing phos­pho­rus – the chal­lenge

The most preva­lent com­pounds of phos­pho­rus are de­riv­a­tives of the phos­phate (PO4) anion, with or­thophos­phate being sol­u­ble and the only bioavail­able form. Or­thophos­phate is there­fore a key mea­sure­ment pa­ra­me­ter in waste­water process con­trol.

Inlet vari­a­tion of or­thophos­phate con­cen­tra­tion is com­mon in sewage and waste­water treat­ment plants, which in­creases the ne­ces­sity for mon­i­tor­ing to in­form dos­ing con­trol. In ad­di­tion, some of the or­gan­i­cally bound phos­pho­rus and polyphos­phates are con­verted into or­thophos­phate dur­ing the waste­water treat­ment process, which can in­flu­ence the total or­thophos­phate con­cen­tra­tion over time. This con­ver­sion is specif­i­cally op­ti­mised by some waste­water treat­ment plants to im­prove the over­all bal­ance of phos­pho­rus re­cov­ery. For these rea­sons, or­thophos­phate con­cen­tra­tion is the ap­pro­pri­ate con­trol pa­ra­me­ter for op­ti­mis­ing pre­cip­i­ta­tion treat­ment. 

Pre­cise dos­ing of pre­cip­i­tants is ex­tremely im­por­tant for phos­pho­rus elim­i­na­tion/re­cov­ery to avoid over- or under-dos­ing. The key to cost-ef­fi­cient pre­cip­i­tant dos­ing is ro­bust on­line mea­sure­ment an­a­lyt­ics that can de­ter­mine the or­thophos­phate pa­ra­me­ter ac­cu­rately and re­pro­ducibly.

Or­thophos­phate pre­cip­i­ta­tion typ­i­cally takes place in these process lo­ca­tions:

• Pre-pre­cip­i­ta­tion (be­fore the bi­o­log­i­cal stage) – early elim­i­na­tion of or­thophos­phate.
• Si­mul­ta­ne­ous pre­cip­i­ta­tion (in ac­ti­vated sludge) - com­bin­ing bi­o­log­i­cal and chem­i­cal processes.
• Post-pre­cip­i­ta­tion (after the bi­o­log­i­cal stage) - re­duces resid­ual phos­phate in ef­flu­ent.
   

With high lev­els of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, these process sam­pling points are al­ways very de­mand­ing. A highly ef­fec­tive fil­ter mech­a­nism is there­fore nec­es­sary to en­sure that there are no block­ages and that sam­ples are truly rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

The so­lu­tion

Swan’s Sam­ple Fil­tra­tion Cab­i­net is an all-in-one so­lu­tion for or­thophos­phate analy­sis in waste­water, fa­cil­i­tat­ing prob­lem-free sam­pling and analy­sis in even the most chal­leng­ing waste­water streams.

The sys­tem sup­ports ISO 6878 or APHA 4500-P/C col­ori­met­ric meth­ods, with model op­tions of­fer­ing ranges of ei­ther 0.01 – 10.0 mg/l, or 0.1 – 50 mg/l. The cab­i­net houses all of the key com­po­nents of the mea­sure­ment sys­tem, in­clud­ing reagents, pumps, com­pres­sor, pho­tome­ter and trans­mit­ter/dis­play unit.

The fil­tra­tion head re­moves sus­pended solids from the sam­ple, but a num­ber of highly in­no­v­a­tive fea­tures en­sure sam­pling does not af­fect mea­sure­ment un­cer­tainty. For ex­am­ple, a built-in com­pres­sor au­to­mat­i­cally im­ple­ments air-pulse clean­ing to ex­tend ser­vice in­ter­vals. 

Typ­i­cally, the fil­ters are re­placed every 3-4 weeks – a process that takes just a few min­utes, and re­quires no spe­cial tools. Used fil­ters can then be chem­i­cally cleaned, using a spe­cial clean­ing ap­pa­ra­tus that is sup­plied as stan­dard. This means that fil­ters can be ex­pected to last for over 2 years.

The sta­bil­ity, re­peata­bil­ity and ac­cu­racy of mea­sure­ments are en­hanced by an over­flow cell that elim­i­nates pres­sure and flow fluc­tu­a­tions, and an auto-zero check is con­ducted be­fore every mea­sure­ment. In ad­di­tion, the in­stru­ment con­ducts au­to­matic self-di­ag­no­sis of sam­ple flow and reagent lev­els.

Or­thophos­phate mea­sure­ment is ideal for process con­trol, but many plants also em­ploy this tech­nol­ogy for mon­i­tor­ing final ef­flu­ent, cor­re­lat­ing with lab­o­ra­tory re­sults for Total Phos­pho­rus (TP). This is be­cause on­line TP takes longer due to the re­quire­ment for a di­ges­tion stage. On­line TP in­stru­ments are also more ex­pen­sive.

Op­tional ex­tras, for even greater peace of mind

An op­tional clean­ing mod­ule is avail­able to help keep the pho­tome­ter and over­flow cell free from biofilm, and heated sam­ple lines can be added for par­tic­u­larly cold lo­ca­tions. In ad­di­tion, many cus­tomers also pur­chase Swan’s solid-state pho­tome­ter ver­i­fi­ca­tion kit. 
 

Emerson has ex­panded the ca­pa­bil­i­ties of its Rose­mount™ 928 Wire­less Gas Mon­i­tor by adding com­bustible gas de­tec­tion, en­abling per­cent lower ex­plo­sive limit (%LEL) mon­i­tor­ing over the se­cure Wire­lessHART® plat­form. The up­date helps users mon­i­tor com­bustible haz­ards in re­mote or hard‑to‑wire lo­ca­tions with­out the need for ad­di­tional power or costly sig­nal wiring.

Re­duced sen­sor main­te­nance

Adding com­bustible gas de­tec­tion to the de­vice gives cus­tomers more flex­i­bil­ity as safety re­quire­ments evolve. The up­dated Rose­mount 928 de­vice sup­ports mea­sure­ments from 0% to 100% LEL, which gives users early warn­ing and com­plete vis­i­bil­ity into com­bustible gas haz­ards, help­ing them de­tect risks sooner and re­spond more ef­fec­tively as con­di­tions es­ca­late. The com­bustible sens­ing tech­nol­ogy is also de­signed to help re­duce main­te­nance over time. Be­cause the sen­sor does not rely on con­sum­able el­e­ments, such as cat­alytic beads, that can de­grade with re­peated gas ex­po­sure, it can sup­port longer ser­vice in­ter­vals and re­duce the need for fre­quent re­cal­i­bra­tion.

Se­cure Wire­lessHART com­mu­ni­ca­tion trans­mits com­bustible gas data in real time, en­abling de­ploy­ment with no added power or sig­nal wiring in hard-to-reach areas. The up­date is in­tended to com­ple­ment ex­ist­ing gas de­tec­tion pro­grammes by help­ing teams add mon­i­tor­ing points in lo­ca­tions that may be lo­gis­ti­cally im­prac­ti­cal or too costly to hard­wire.

WIKA has ex­panded its level mea­sure­ment port­fo­lio with the ad­di­tion of the ILT radar sen­sor. This free-beam sen­sor en­ables non-con­tact level mea­sure­ment, even through the walls of plas­tic con­tain­ers. Its com­pact de­sign makes the ILT par­tic­u­larly suit­able for ap­pli­ca­tions where space is lim­ited. Man­u­fac­tur­ers can, for ex­am­ple, in­stall the sen­sor in mo­bile work­ing ma­chines or heat­ing sys­tems. Fur­ther­more, non-con­tact tech­nol­ogy en­ables high-pre­ci­sion mea­sure­ment of the level of par­ti­cle-con­tain­ing, highly vis­cous or solid ma­te­ri­als. Pos­si­ble ap­pli­ca­tions range from waste­water plants to all types of raw ma­te­r­ial con­tain­ers and fuels.

High-tem­per­a­ture ver­sion avail­able

The ILT-C01 ver­sion is de­signed for a tem­per­a­ture range of -40 ... +100 °C, while the ILT-C05 ver­sion also cov­ers high tem­per­a­tures up to 150 °C. Metal shield­ing pro­tects the sen­sor from in­ter­fer­ence caused by elec­tri­cal fields in the en­vi­ron­ment. The in­stru­ment op­er­ates re­li­ably even under ad­verse con­di­tions such as dust, mois­ture and heat, and can tol­er­ate vi­bra­tions and shocks of up to 100g. With up to two ad­di­tional switch points, fur­ther switch­ing out­puts can be in­te­grated, for ex­am­ple for over­flow or dry run pro­tec­tion. Last but not least, the radar sen­sor en­sures low op­er­at­ing costs, as it is main­te­nance-free thanks to its non-con­tact mea­sur­ing prin­ci­ple and wear-free de­sign.

AMSYS is ex­pand­ing its range of Ex-cer­ti­fied pres­sure trans­mit­ters, of­fer­ing a broader se­lec­tion for pres­sure mea­sure­ment in po­ten­tially ex­plo­sive at­mos­pheres. The com­pact ATEX-cer­ti­fied P.​Trace and P.​Core se­ries have re­cently been added to the port­fo­lio. At the same time, the wire­less Ex-trans­mit­ters U5601 and M5601 are being re­placed with the 65xxN-EX and 69xxN-EX se­ries. Trans­mit­ters for po­ten­tially ex­plo­sive at­mos­pheres are aimed at users who need to re­li­ably mea­sure pres­sure in gases, liq­uids, steam or de­mand­ing in­dus­trial en­vi­ron­ments. De­pend­ing on the ap­pli­ca­tion, dif­fer­ent con­cepts are avail­able: 

Ce­ramic mea­sure­ment cells

The new ATEX-cer­ti­fied P.​Trace is a com­pact pres­sure trans­mit­ter with a ce­ramic mea­sur­ing cell in a ro­bust stain­less steel hous­ing. It is es­pe­cially suited to in­dus­trial ap­pli­ca­tions re­quir­ing media-re­sis­tant, space-sav­ing and per­ma­nently re­li­able pres­sure mea­sure­ment. With ana­log out­put sig­nals such as 0-10 V, 1-10 V or 4-20 mA, P.​Trace fo­cuses on clas­sic mea­sured value out­put and can be eas­ily in­te­grated into ex­ist­ing sys­tems.

P.​Core com­ple­ments this de­sign as a com­pact ATEX pres­sure switch with two PNP-out­puts and IO-Link. Be­yond sim­ple pres­sure mea­sure­ment, the se­ries of­fers switch­ing and pa­ra­me­ter­i­za­tion func­tions whose val­ues can be in­te­grated di­rectly into au­toma­tion sys­tems. P.​Core com­bines a ce­ramic mea­sur­ing cell with a ro­bust stain­less-steel hous­ing and is suit­able, among other ap­pli­ca­tions, for hy­draulics, au­toma­tion tech­nol­ogy, pneu­mat­ics, vac­uum tech­nol­ogy and the pack­ag­ing in­dus­try.

Dif­fer­ent wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion ranges cov­ered

For wire­less ap­pli­ca­tions in haz­ardous areas, the 65xxN-EX re­places the pre­vi­ous U5601 and M5601 se­ries. The Blue­tooth pres­sure trans­mit­ter is de­signed es­pe­cially for the oil and gas in­dus­try as well as for in­dus­trial ap­pli­ca­tions in haz­ardous areas in ac­cor­dance with North Amer­i­can Ha­zLoc stan­dards, Eu­ro­pean ATEX and the in­ter­na­tional Ex zone sys­tem. It is suit­able for mon­i­tor­ing liq­uid and gas pres­sure, even with de­mand­ing media such as con­t­a­m­i­nated water, steam or mildly cor­ro­sive liq­uids. With wet­ted parts made from 316L stain­less steel, an IP66/IP67 hous­ing, pres­sure ranges from 2 to 350 bar and sim­ple smart­phone con­fig­u­ra­tion, the 65xxN-EX pro­vides a mod­ern so­lu­tion for ser­vice, con­di­tion mon­i­tor­ing and mea­sure­ment points that are dif­fi­cult to ac­cess.

For longer ranges, the 69xxN-EX is avail­able. Un­like the 65xxN-EX, this se­ries uses Lo­RaWAN wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion and is there­fore par­tic­u­larly suit­able for de­cen­tral­ized mea­sur­ing points in the oil and gas in­dus­try, for ex­am­ple pres­sure mon­i­tor­ing of oil wells, pipelines or ex­ten­sive fa­cil­i­ties. Con­fig­u­ra­tion is also car­ried out via Blue­tooth Low En­ergy. The 69xxN-EX is like­wise avail­able in Ha­zLoc-cer­ti­fied vari­ants, of­fers an IP66/IP67 hous­ing and sup­ports pres­sure ranges from 2 to 350 bar.

SST Sensing Ltd, a DwyerOmega brand in­tro­duces a range of in­trin­si­cally safe op­ti­cal liq­uid level switches ap­proved for haz­ardous areas. They are de­signed for use in de­mand­ing ap­pli­ca­tions where di­rect con­tact with hy­dro­car­bons, fuels, and flam­ma­ble or ex­plo­sive liq­uids is re­quired.

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, tank/con­tainer level-con­trol, 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.

Wide range of op­er­at­ing tem­per­a­tures

These liq­uid level switches are highly ro­bust and re­sis­tant to chem­i­cal at­tack, with an op­er­at­ing tem­per­a­ture range be­tween -30 and +80°C. 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. Cer­ti­fied to meet strin­gent ATEX and IECEx safety stan­dards, this sen­sor is suit­able for use in haz­ardous area zones 0, 1 & 2 and en­sures in­trin­sic safety by main­tain­ing en­ergy lev­els low enough to avoid ig­ni­tion risks, even in faulty con­di­tions, mak­ing it ideal for a wide range of ap­pli­ca­tions and is de­signed for Equip­ment Groups IIA, IIB, and IIC with a tem­per­a­ture clas­si­fi­ca­tion of T4 as de­fined by EN/IEC stan­dards 60079-0, and 60079-11 (lat­est ver­sions).

“Our aim was to specif­i­cally op­ti­mise the well-known sys­tem-re­lated draw­backs of ex­ist­ing iso­la­tion cham­ber sys­tems and thereby sus­tain­ably in­crease process re­li­a­bil­ity,” says Ste­fan Anstöter, Key Ac­count Man­ager for chem­i­cal pumps at Tim­mer. Pneu­matic dou­ble-di­aphragm pumps are fre­quently used where other pump tech­nolo­gies reach their lim­its: with chang­ing media, dif­fi­cult pump­ing con­di­tions or sen­si­tive ap­pli­ca­tions in the chem­i­cal in­dus­try.

Dou­ble-di­aphragm pumps are sub­ject to nor­mal wear and tear re­sult­ing from op­er­a­tion. The di­aphragm is the com­po­nent that is sub­jected to the great­est stress. The bar­rier cham­ber was de­vel­oped to en­able the early de­tec­tion of wear and to pre­vent any po­ten­tial leak­age of the fluid.

New de­sign with­out a bar­rier fluid

Con­ven­tional bar­rier cham­ber sys­tems op­er­ate using a neu­tral liq­uid be­tween two di­aphragms. This sub­stance serves both to trans­mit force and to de­tect leaks. Anstöter ex­plains: “The bar­rier agent must be pre­cisely matched to the spe­cific medium.” De­pend­ing on the medium being pumped, the con­duc­tiv­ity of the neu­tral fluid must be taken into ac­count and the sen­sor sys­tem in­di­vid­u­ally cal­i­brated. “This is labour-in­ten­sive and makes main­te­nance and ser­vic­ing un­nec­es­sar­ily com­pli­cated,” says Anstöter.

Tim­mer there­fore takes a dif­fer­ent ap­proach: there is no liq­uid be­tween the two di­aphragms, but rather a dry bar­rier cham­ber. Force trans­mis­sion is me­chan­i­cal. Philipp Lange works as sales man­ager for process pumps at Tim­mer. He ex­plains: “We use this me­chan­i­cal prin­ci­ple in our high-pres­sure pump se­ries, so we al­ready had the so­lu­tion in-house.”

Not only is the tech­ni­cal com­plex­ity re­duced, but the new prin­ci­ple also in­creases the pump’s flex­i­bil­ity. Chang­ing media or mo­bile ap­pli­ca­tions can be im­ple­mented more eas­ily be­cause no ad­just­ment to the bar­rier fluid is re­quired.

Im­me­di­ate leak de­tec­tion

If the media-side di­aphragm rup­tures, the pumped medium first en­ters the bar­rier cham­ber. There, a mois­ture sen­sor iden­ti­fies even the small­est quan­ti­ties of liq­uid and can stop the process im­me­di­ately. “Leak de­tec­tion using mois­ture sen­sors is tech­ni­cally much sim­pler, as flu­ids in the bar­rier cham­ber are de­tected di­rectly and no com­plex cal­i­bra­tion or sen­sor ad­just­ment to the mon­i­tored fluid is re­quired,” ex­plains Lange.

In ad­di­tion, the pump can be fit­ted with a pres­sure sen­sor. It mon­i­tors the bar­rier cham­ber for pres­sure in­creases and de­tects if the air-side di­aphragm is dam­aged and com­pressed air could enter the medium. Anstöter ex­plains: “This not only pro­tects the sur­round­ing area from es­cap­ing media, but also pre­vents for­eign sub­stances from en­ter­ing the process.”

This is an enor­mous ad­van­tage, par­tic­u­larly in sen­si­tive ap­pli­ca­tions. After all, it is not only leak­ing chem­i­cals that pose a risk; even the tini­est im­pu­ri­ties in the medium can ren­der en­tire batches un­us­able.

Sig­nif­i­cantly less main­te­nance work

The new sys­tem also of­fers ad­van­tages in terms of ser­vic­ing. As there is no bar­rier fluid, nu­mer­ous up­keep and in­spec­tions steps are no longer re­quired. “With con­ven­tional sys­tems, the cham­bers have to be filled, vented and then pre­cisely ad­justed,” ex­plains Anstöter. “With our sys­tem, ser­vic­ing is es­sen­tially me­chan­i­cal: clean, re­place the di­aphragms, re­assem­ble, and you’re done.” This saves time and sig­nif­i­cantly re­duces the work­load, par­tic­u­larly in chem­i­cal parks where pumps are often main­tained by in-house spe­cial­ist staff.

Suit­able for mo­bile ap­pli­ca­tions and haz­ardous areas

In ad­di­tion to sta­tion­ary ap­pli­ca­tions, the pump is also suit­able for mo­bile use. In chem­i­cal parks, pumps are often mounted on trol­leys to flex­i­bly trans­fer or pump dif­fer­ent media. “Par­tic­u­larly with mo­bile ap­pli­ca­tions, you often don’t know ex­actly which medium will be pumped next,” ex­plains Anstöter. “In such cases, it is a major ad­van­tage not to have to ad­just the bar­rier fluid.”

Tim­mer also of­fers me­chan­i­cal ver­sions with­out elec­tronic sen­sors for this pur­pose. Lange says: “The sys­tem then op­er­ates en­tirely with­out ad­di­tional elec­tron­ics. The user can im­me­di­ately see via the sight glass and/or pres­sure gauge whether every­thing is in order.” The mo­bile units are also de­signed for use in areas with po­ten­tially ex­plo­sive at­mos­pheres.

Al­ready in use in the field

The first sys­tems are now in op­er­a­tion at es­tab­lished chem­i­cal com­pa­nies. For Tim­mer, this is an im­por­tant step to­wards es­tab­lish­ing the new con­cept in the de­mand­ing chem­i­cal in­dus­try. With the new bar­rier cham­ber sys­tem, Tim­mer demon­strates that high process re­li­a­bil­ity, sim­ple main­te­nance and flex­i­ble ap­pli­ca­tion op­tions can be com­bined with­out in­cur­ring ad­di­tional tech­ni­cal op­er­at­ing and main­te­nance costs.
 

A decade is not long enough: KNF proves what long-term reliability looks like. With a verified lifetime test result of 100,000 operating hours under defined operating conditions, the NMP 850.1.2 sets a new benchmark in diaphragm pump lifetime. This milestone reflects engineering excellence rooted in reliability-driven product development. A rigorous testing philosophy ensures every product meets the highest standards. The result is a pump that enables OEMs to build safer, more efficient, and more durable systems.

Exceptional durability demonstrated

Reaching 100,000 hours of uninterrupted performance is a remarkable achievement for micro diaphragm gas pumps. It represents more than 11 years of continuous operation in a controlled environment, exceeding the demands of most real-world applications. This milestone highlights KNF’s engineering expertise and the reliability built into every pump. “This achievement is not an isolated result, but a reflection of the high quality and engineering standards we apply to every product” Fabian Hofstetter, Head of Product Management at KNF Micro AG, said.

Testing reliability: A closer look at the 100,000-hour lifetime test

KNF routinely performs long‑term diaphragm pump tests under demanding conditions to understand real‑world reliability and provide customers with trustworthy lifetime information. The goal of this lifetime test was simple: to determine how long the NMP 850.1.2 diaphragm gas pump remains functional at a specific operating point. Two sets of five pumps each were installed at a KNF testing facility and operated continuously under intense laboratory conditions.

To create a demanding environment, the pumps were exposed to:

• 40°C ambient temperature, the highest permissible value for this pump type, 
• 40-60% humidity, 
• 0.5 bar overpressure,
• Vibration from the other pumps mounted in the test setup.
   

Despite these elevated stresses, the pumps continued to run reliably without any maintenance or part replacements, even after surpassing 100,000 hours. This result provides valuable insight into long-term durability under specific operating conditions.

Long-lasting performance that minimizes downtime 

Robust design and outstanding durability significantly reduce the risk of unexpected downtime, especially in industries where continuous availability is essential. This includes:

• Medical devices,
• Portable and stationary emission measurement,
• Analytical and laboratory instruments, 
• Safety-critical systems such as gas detection.
   

A pump designed for long-term operation can support stable device performance, lowers maintenance needs, and helps customers reduce total cost of ownership. This proven longevity gives OEMs and system integrators greater confidence when installing KNF pumps into their applications.

Quality enhances application safety and reliability 

Results like these do not happen by chance. They are rooted in KNF’s engineering-driven product development approach, where pumps are designed for durability and long-term stability from the outset and then thoroughly validated through systematic testing. All pumps undergo detailed technical inspection as part of serial production to ensure compliance with relevant specifications and directives. This inspection is independent of development and lifetime testing activities. Additionally, every KNF pump is individually tested before delivery, supported by pre-tested single components that ensure efficient processing even for customized solutions. 

The testing processes are designed to identify and eliminate potential risks during development and throughout production. This leads to predictable pump behavior and stable performance in the field. For customers, this means enhanced safety, consistent quality, and long-term confidence in their applications.