NET­Z­SCH has been op­er­at­ing suc­cess­fully in In­dia for more than two dec­ades. “The new pro­duc­tion fa­cil­ity is a ma­jor step for­ward for NET­Z­SCH Pumps & Sys­tems and a strong com­mit­ment to In­dia as a man­u­fac­tur­ing site,” ex­plains Vivek Nor­man, Man­aging Dir­ect­or of NET­Z­SCH Pumps & Sys­tems In­dia. With the open­ing of the plant, NET­Z­SCH is un­der­scor­ing its long-term com­mit­ment to the re­gion and the con­tinu­ous ex­pan­sion of its glob­al pro­duc­tion ca­pa­cit­ies.

The tar­geted ex­pan­sion of re­gion­al pro­duc­tion will fur­ther in­crease cus­tom­er prox­im­ity in South Asia. Mod­ern pro­duc­tion and qual­ity stand­ards, as well as ad­di­tion­al en­gin­eer­ing and de­vel­op­ment ca­pa­cit­ies, form the basis for meet­ing the grow­ing de­mands of the South Asi­an mar­ket ef­fi­ciently, flex­ibly, and at a con­sist­ently high level.

“The ex­pan­sion of our pro­duc­tion ca­pa­cit­ies in In­dia is a cent­ral com­pon­ent of our glob­al strategy,” ex­plains CEO An­dreas Den­ker. “The loc­a­tion in Goa strengthens our glob­al pro­duc­tion net­work and en­ables us to meet mar­ket re­quire­ments even more quickly and spe­cific­ally at a re­gion­al level.”
 

On March 5th, 2026, Dacke In­dus­tri ac­quired 100% of the shares in Ro­tork Mid­land Ltd, (to be re­named Mid­land Flow Ltd), a UK-based com­pany spe­cial­iz­ing in high-qual­ity solen­oid valves and in­stru­ment­a­tion for de­mand­ing in­dus­tri­al ap­plic­a­tions and Ro­tork In­stru­ments S.r.l. (to be re­named M&M In­stru­ments S.r.l.) an Itali­an com­pany with a strong track re­cord in design­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing in­nov­at­ive flow con­trol solu­tions for in­dus­tri­al ap­plic­a­tions. The cur­rent lead­er­ship teams will con­tin­ue to guide their or­gan­iz­a­tions mov­ing for­ward.

Both will be­come part of the Air Tech­no­logy Busi­ness Area with­in the Air and Mechat­ron­ics di­vi­sion, en­han­cing our shared know­ledge base and sup­port­ing col­lab­or­at­ive ini­ti­at­ives across the group.

Mid­land Flow Ltd is a lead­ing man­u­fac­turer of solen­oid valves and in­stru­ment­a­tion un­der the Mid­land-ACS and Al­con brands, renowned for its ex­pert­ise in design­ing and pro­du­cing high-qual­ity 316L stain­less steel con­trol equip­ment. The com­pany de­liv­ers in­nov­at­ive solu­tions across a wide ar­ray of ap­plic­a­tions, in­clud­ing con­trol sys­tems for pneu­mat­ic and hy­draul­ic con­trol valves, elec­tro-pneu­mat­ic and elec­tro-hy­draul­ic ac­tu­at­ors, loc­al con­trol pan­els, man­i­folds, and es­sen­tial com­pon­ents such as solen­oid valves, level con­trols, gas de­tec­tion, and fire-fight­ing equip­ment. The com­pany is headquartered in Wol­ver­hamp­ton, United King­dom. Mid­land Flow Ltd em­ploys ap­prox­im­ately 44 people and has an an­nu­al turnover of about £7,5 mil­lion.

Un­der the renowned M&M brand, M&M In­stru­ments S.r.l designs and man­u­fac­tures solen­oid and pis­ton-ac­tu­ated valves for a wide range of com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al flow con­trol ap­plic­a­tions. The port­fo­lio cov­ers both stand-alone solu­tions and be­spoke OEM in­stall­a­tions, en­sur­ing the ideal fit for each cus­tom­er’s needs. With a strong repu­ta­tion for qual­ity, re­li­ab­il­ity, and in­nov­a­tion, the valves de­liv­er strong per­form­ance even in the most de­mand­ing en­vir­on­ments and ex­treme tem­per­at­ures world­wide. The com­pany is headquartered in Ber­ga­mo, Italy. M&M In­stru­ments S.r.l em­ploys ap­prox­im­ately 40 people and has an an­nu­al turnover of about EUR 8 mil­lion.

"We look for­ward to wel­com­ing our new col­leagues in the UK and to shar­ing know­ledge and ex­per­i­ences across the group,” says Mi­ka Vir­tan­en, Pres­id­ent Air and Mechat­ron­ics of Dacke In­dus­tri.

“We are de­lighted to wel­come the Mid­land Flow team to our group. Their ad­vanced valve and in­stru­ment­a­tion solu­tions ex­pand our core of­fer­ing, while ro­bust sales chan­nels, OEM part­ner­ships, and long-term cus­tom­er re­la­tion­ships help grow our glob­al reach. This ad­di­tion will ac­cel­er­ate de­vel­op­ment and open up new op­por­tun­it­ies across the group,” says Satu Rautavalta, VP Busi­ness Area Air Tech­no­logy of Dacke In­dus­tri and Chair­man of Mid­land Flow Ltd.
 

OPA is an ini­ti­at­ive of The Open Group Open Pro­cess Auto­ma­tion For­um (OPAF) that pro­motes the ad­op­tion of an open, se­cure, and in­ter­op­er­able pro­cess con­trol ar­chi­tec­ture that will en­able the flex­ible com­bin­a­tion of devices and soft­ware from dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers. The abil­ity to con­struct sys­tems without be­ing de­pend­ent on any one vendor will en­sure both flex­ib­il­ity and scalab­il­ity while prom­ising to hold down costs over the en­tire sys­tem li­fe­cycle.

Gran­ted by the OPC Found­a­tion, this OPC UA cer­ti­fic­a­tion of­fi­cially con­firms that re­lease 1.02.10 of Yokogawa’s Open Auto­ma­tion SI Kit con­forms with the OPC UA cli­ent/serv­er com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­file (OCF‑001: O‑PAS Con­nectiv­ity Frame­work) defined in the O‑PAS stand­ard. Cer­ti­fic­a­tion for con­form­ance with the O‑PAS OPC UA pro­file con­firms that sys­tems with the Open Auto­ma­tion SI Kit in­stalled can provide stand­ard, re­li­able com­mu­nic­a­tion and data ex­change, en­abling seam­less in­ter­op­er­ab­il­ity between O‑PAS com­pon­ents sup­plied by Yokogawa and oth­er vendors.

Col­lab­or­a­tion for con­tinu­ous im­prove­ment

As a key mem­ber of OPAF, which con­sists of 95 com­pan­ies and oth­er or­gan­iz­a­tions, Yokogawa has car­ried out mul­tiple OPA-re­lated demon­stra­tion projects in col­lab­or­a­tion with ma­jor oil com­pan­ies. These ef­forts – span­ning the plan­ning, de­vel­op­ment, test­ing, and con­tinu­ous im­prove­ment of OPA tech­no­lo­gies – have led to this achieve­ment. Yokogawa will con­tin­ue to in­cor­por­ate open and flex­ible tech­no­lo­gies, build­ing on the strengths it has cul­tiv­ated over the years in in­dus­tri­al auto­ma­tion. By lever­aging this cer­ti­fic­a­tion as a mile­stone, Yokogawa will fur­ther strengthen its products for OPA sys­tems and ac­cel­er­ate ef­forts to­ward the prac­tic­al ap­plic­a­tion of OPA, thereby de­liv­er­ing op­tim­al sys­tems that meet cus­tom­er needs.

The ma­jor mar­kets for the soft­ware are oil & gas, chem­ic­als, phar­ma­ceut­ic­als, and food in­dus­tries.
 

Chem­ic­al com­pounds like iso­cy­anate are tox­ic and trig­ger al­ler­gies or asthma. However, they re­main in­dis­pens­able for the chem­ic­al in­dustry. They are needed es­pe­cially in the pro­duc­tion of PUR. These plastics are highly ver­sat­ile and are there­fore used in many products. Al­though the end product no longer con­tains iso­cy­anates, spe­cial safety pre­cau­tions are ne­ces­sary dur­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing to keep them away from hu­mans and to avoid health haz­ards.

For the first time, Fraunhofer re­search­ers have now suc­ceeded in pro­du­cing poly­ureth­anes without us­ing iso­cy­anates in the CO2NIPU (non­iso­cy­anate poly­ureth­ane, NIPU) project.

Di­car­bamate as a sub­sti­tute for iso­cy­anate

To achieve this, project man­ager Chris­toph Her­furth from the Fraunhofer In­sti­tute for Ap­plied Poly­mer Re­search IAP and his team re­placed iso­cy­anate with harm­less di­car­bamate. The in­nov­at­ive pro­cess makes the pro­duc­tion of plastics easi­er and safer. Em­ploy­ees no longer have to un­der­go spe­cial train­ing to pro­tect them­selves from the tox­ic sub­stance. A fur­ther be­ne­fit: The pro­cess res­ults in lower green­house gas emis­sions. This is be­cause the re­search­ers are us­ing car­bon di­ox­ide to pro­duce di­car­bamate. They are also de­vel­op­ing re­cyc­ling meth­ods for used PUR ma­ter­i­als.

In ad­di­tion to Fraunhofer IAP, par­ti­cipants in the CO2NIPU project were the Fraunhofer In­sti­tute for Chem­ic­al Tech­no­lo­gies ICT, the Fraunhofer In­sti­tute for Man­u­fac­tur­ing Tech­no­logy and Ad­vanced Ma­ter­i­als IFAM and the Fraunhofer In­sti­tute for En­vir­on­ment­al, Safety and En­ergy Tech­no­logy UM­SICHT. Her­furth points out the ad­vant­ages of this in­nov­at­ive project: “The mo­lecu­lar struc­tures of poly­ureth­anes made from di­car­bamates are identic­al to those of con­ven­tion­al PU made from iso­cy­anates. This means that ex­ist­ing ex­pert­ise can be built upon to achieve the ma­ter­i­al prop­er­ties re­quired for the end product or ap­plic­a­tion.”

Mod­u­lar sys­tem for ma­ter­i­al prop­er­ties

The re­search­ers have fur­ther de­veloped the pro­cess with a view to in­dus­tri­al feas­ib­il­ity. Dif­fer­ent chem­ic­als are mixed in spe­cif­ic pro­por­tions to pro­duce the de­sired prop­er­ties. So-called chain ex­tenders help to cross-link the mo­lecu­lar groups and en­sure elast­ic or ad­hes­ive prop­er­ties. Poly­mer di­ols serve to soften the plastic, while the di­car­bamate, as a sub­sti­tute for iso­cy­anate, ini­ti­ates the chem­ic­al pro­cess. After mix­ing, these chem­ic­als are melted and stirred at tem­per­at­ures between 180 and 190 de­grees Celsi­us. After cool­ing, the ex­perts test for char­ac­ter­ist­ics such as tensile strength and elasti­city.

Iso­cy­anates are highly re­act­ive, which is why poly­ureth­anes of­ten form with­in only a few minutes. Al­though us­ing less re­act­ive di­car­bamates ex­tends the same pro­cess out to six to eight hours, this makes it much easi­er to con­trol and reg­u­late. This re­duces scrap and qual­ity fluc­tu­ations in pro­duc­tion.

Cir­cu­lar eco­nomy for the plastics in­dustry

Di­car­bamates are pro­duced us­ing a high-pres­sure pro­cess at project part­ner Fraunhofer UM­SICHT. Meth­an­ol and CO₂ are re­acted with diam­ines at a pres­sure of 50 bar to syn­thes­ize di­car­bamates. Fraunhofer ICT de­vel­ops re­cyc­ling pro­cesses for used poly­ureth­anes, such as from old foam ma­ter­i­als, which are then re­pro­cessed to pro­duce new PUR products. “We are thus con­trib­ut­ing to the goal of a sus­tain­able cir­cu­lar eco­nomy without green­house gas emis­sions,” Her­furth sum­mar­izes.

As an ini­tial ap­plic­a­tion, Fraunhofer re­search­ers have set their sights on man­u­fac­tur­ing biocom­pat­ible cath­et­er tubes for med­ic­al ap­plic­a­tions. Fraunhofer IFAM uses the vari­able mod­u­lar sys­tem to de­vel­op ad­hes­ives that en­able bond­ing of can­nu­las to the tube.

The tech­no­logy for pro­du­cing iso­cy­anate-free poly­ureth­anes is now also work­ing out­side the labor­at­ory. “We are now able to pro­duce sev­er­al kilo­grams of NIPU in our pi­lot plant. In the next step, it will be pos­sible to pro­duce sev­er­al hun­dred kilo­grams of NIPU at the Fraunhofer Pi­lot Plant Cen­ter for Poly­mer Syn­thes­is and Pro­cessing PAZ in Sch­ko­pau,” says Her­furth.
 

As hy­dro­gen tech­no­lo­gies ex­pand across Europe, the grow­ing re­li­ance on crit­ic­al raw ma­ter­i­als poses en­vir­on­ment­al, eco­nom­ic and sup­ply chain chal­lenges. IRI­ON ad­dresses this chal­lenge by pro­mot­ing a cir­cu­lar ap­proach that en­ables the re­cov­ery, re­use and re­in­teg­ra­tion of valu­able ma­ter­i­als in­to new tech­no­lo­gies. The project fo­cuses par­tic­u­larly on im­prov­ing the sus­tain­ab­il­ity of pro­ton ex­change mem­brane wa­ter elec­tro­lys­ers (PEM­WE) — devices that sep­ar­ate hy­dro­gen from wa­ter us­ing elec­tri­city — a key tech­no­logy for green hy­dro­gen pro­duc­tion, with a spe­cial fo­cus on scarce ma­ter­i­als such as iridi­um and flu­or­in­ated ionomers, com­pounds that are es­sen­tial for the func­tion­ing of these mem­branes.

By com­bin­ing tech­no­lo­gic­al in­nov­a­tion, sus­tain­ab­il­ity as­sess­ment and cross-sec­tor­al col­lab­or­a­tion, IRI­ON aims to cre­ate solu­tions that are vi­able from both an en­vir­on­ment­al and eco­nom­ic per­spect­ive, in line with the pri­or­it­ies of the European Green Deal and the Crit­ic­al Raw Ma­ter­i­als Act.

10 part­ners from 7 coun­tries

The ini­ti­at­ive of­fi­cially kicked off fol­low­ing its kick-off meet­ing, held on 20 and 21 Janu­ary 2026 at the AIM­PLAS fa­cil­it­ies in Valen­cia, where the part­ners dis­cussed the tech­nic­al and or­gan­iz­a­tion­al as­pects of the project and planned the activ­it­ies for its first phase.

The con­sor­ti­um brings to­geth­er ten part­ners from sev­en European coun­tries — Spain, France, Ger­many, Italy, Slov­e­nia, the Czech Re­pub­lic and Cyprus — with com­ple­ment­ary ex­pert­ise span­ning poly­mer chem­istry, ma­ter­i­als sci­ence, en­gin­eer­ing, mod­el­ling, en­vir­on­ment­al as­sess­ment and sus­tain­able design ap­proaches. These in­clude AIM­PLAS, the Fraunhofer In­sti­tute for Elec­tron­ic Nano Sys­tems (Ger­many), the Uni­versity of Chem­istry and Tech­no­logy in Prague (Czech Re­pub­lic), Strategem En­ergy (Cyprus), Safina (Czech Re­pub­lic), Saint-Gobain Recher­che (France), the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of Chem­istry NIC (Slov­e­nia), RINA Con­sult­ing (Italy) and H2Greem (Spain).

AIM­PLAS con­trib­utes its ex­pert­ise in poly­mer­ic ma­ter­i­als, re­cyc­ling tech­no­lo­gies and pro­cess op­tim­isa­tion, sup­port­ing the de­vel­op­ment and val­id­a­tion of sus­tain­able re­cyc­ling path­ways for cata­lyst-coated mem­branes.

“With IRI­ON, we aim to close the loop on crit­ic­al ma­ter­i­als in hy­dro­gen tech­no­lo­gies, pro­mot­ing a truly cir­cu­lar mod­el that com­bines sus­tain­ab­il­ity and eco­nom­ic vi­ab­il­ity whilst strength­en­ing European autonomy,” says Javi­er Castillo, a re­search­er in Chem­ic­al Re­cyc­ling at AIM­PLAS. 

IRI­ON is fun­ded by the Clean Hy­dro­gen Joint Un­der­tak­ing un­der the European Uni­on’s Ho­ri­zon Europe pro­gramme (HO­RI­ZON-JU-CLEANH2-2025-05-01).
 

The re­port and cer­ti­fic­ates from UL Solu­tions, fol­low­ing test­ing in ac­cord­ance with IEC 62443, con­firm the ETG’s state­ments: Eth­er­CAT tech­no­logy already meets the re­quire­ments for sys­tems ex­posed to cy­ber at­tacks cor­res­pond­ing to Se­cur­ity Level 2 without any modi­fic­a­tions. In its European ver­sion IEC 62443, the in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ard for cy­ber se­cur­ity of in­dus­tri­al con­trol sys­tems, will also form the basis for the European Cy­ber Re­si­li­ence Act. Fur­ther­more, the in­vest­ig­a­tions show that no hard­ware changes are ne­ces­sary for high­er se­cur­ity re­quire­ments. With tar­geted soft­ware en­hance­ments, high­er se­cur­ity levels can also be achieved based on the Eth­er­CAT sys­tem.

Eval­u­ation of dif­fer­ent scen­ari­os

UL mapped all 100+ Sys­tem Re­quire­ments (SR) of IEC 62443-3-3 to three typ­ic­al Eth­er­CAT sys­tems with dif­fer­ent threat scen­ari­os and eval­u­ated the de­gree of com­pli­ance achieved by Eth­er­CAT.

“We at UL Solu­tions were de­lighted to work with an in­dus­tri­al pro­tocol which has se­cur­ity cap­ab­il­it­ies and en­able­ment-by-design as well as hard­ware im­ple­men­ted se­cur­ity, which is second-to-none in the cat­egory of in­dus­tri­al pro­to­cols”, says Al­ex­an­der W. Koehler, S&S Prin­cip­al Se­cur­ity Ad­visor for Cy­ber­se­cur­ity at UL Solu­tions. “IT and OT-se­cur­ity have not been best friends in the past. IT se­cur­ity re­quire­ments have of­ten been driv­en by typ­ic­al short product li­fe­cycles of of­fice work­er equip­ment, which con­trast with in­dus­tri­al equip­ment with long li­fe­cycles. In con­sequence there are still many products in the in­dus­tri­al field without or weak se­cur­ity built in, la­belled as leg­acy products. Eth­er­CAT is a pos­it­ive ex­cep­tion here.”

Dr. Guido Beck­mann, Chair of the Tech­nic­al Com­mit­tee of the Eth­er­CAT Tech­no­logy Group: “The res­ults of the ex­tens­ive in­vest­ig­a­tions con­firm the ETG’s as­sess­ment: Eth­er­CAT already provides a high level of cy­ber se­cur­ity pro­tec­tion for in­dus­tri­al ap­plic­a­tions today. The tested and doc­u­mented fea­tures and meas­ures form the basis for the re­com­mend­a­tions and spe­cific­a­tions we are de­vel­op­ing for man­u­fac­tur­ers and users of Eth­er­CAT devices.”

The ifm group ended 2025 on a very pos­it­ive note. Sales, ad­jus­ted for cur­rency ef­fects, in­creased by 10% to EUR 1.47 bil­lion. “This very pos­it­ive res­ult for 2025 is par­tic­u­larly re­mark­able as we were able to achieve strong growth world­wide des­pite on­go­ing geo­pol­it­ic­al chal­lenges – al­most ex­actly in line with our plans,” says Chris­toph von Rosen­berg, CFO of the ifm Group. While de­mand in the Ger­man mar­ket de­clined, caused in par­tic­u­lar by the weak or­der situ­ation in the mech­an­ic­al en­gin­eer­ing sec­tor, this was more than off­set by strong growth in the Asia-Pa­cific re­gion and the Amer­icas. Strong mo­mentum came es­pe­cially from the pro­cess in­dustry, where a num­ber of new products met with a very pos­it­ive cus­tom­er re­sponse and drove sub­stan­tial growth in this seg­ment.

Ex­pand­ing sus­tain­able con­struc­tion ca­pa­cit­ies

Des­pite sig­ni­fic­ant ex­change rate ef­fects, earn­ings be­fore in­terest and taxes (EBIT) in­creased slightly by 1% com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year to reach EUR 69 mil­lion. The work­force grew to around 9,120 em­ploy­ees. More than 5,260 of these are based in Ger­many. The com­pany’s in­nov­at­ive strength is clearly evid­ent in the ap­prox­im­ately 1,500 em­ploy­ees work­ing in re­search and de­vel­op­ment. 

Fol­low­ing the change of name to ifm group se on 1 Janu­ary 2025, the in­vestor KKR has held a minor­ity stake since Oc­to­ber 2025. Through this part­ner­ship, the fam­ily-owned busi­ness aims to se­cure fu­ture suc­cess and sus­tain­able growth for the next gen­er­a­tion. One of the high­lights of the past year was the start of con­struc­tion on a new plant in Su­zhou, China, in April. Pro­duc­tion at this sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion site, which com­plies with the DGNB Gold stand­ard, is sched­uled to be­gin in the first quarter of 2027. This will en­able ifm not only to main­tain its 20-year long sales pres­ence in this im­port­ant mar­ket, but also to re­in­force its po­s­i­tion through loc­al pro­duc­tion and R&D ex­pert­ise. With these mile­stones, ifm sees it­self very well po­si­tioned for the fu­ture and ex­pects pos­it­ive growth again in the cur­rent year.

The new Test Cen­ter cov­ers an area of around 539 square metres and is de­signed to ana­lyse the con­vey­ing of a wide vari­ety of ma­ter­i­als – from fer­rous and non-fer­rous metals to ce­ment and fly ash from the en­ergy sec­tor. In the fu­ture, it will also be pos­sible to ex­am­ine per­form­ance ma­ter­i­als and chem­ic­als. Typ­ic­al para­met­ers such as particle size dis­tri­bu­tion, bulk dens­ity, flow­ab­il­ity, air and en­ergy con­sump­tion, as well as re­quired pres­sures and flows, are meas­ured un­der real­ist­ic op­er­at­ing con­di­tions.

Trust is good, test­ing is bet­ter

At the new Test Cen­ter, cus­tom­ers can have their ma­ter­i­als eval­u­ated un­der real-world con­di­tions. After an ini­tial labor­at­ory char­ac­ter­iz­a­tion, the ma­ter­i­als are tested in full-scale con­vey­ing setups to as­sess their be­ha­vi­or at dif­fer­ent feed rates, pres­sures and vent­ing con­di­tions. Qlar then de­term­ines pro­cess‑spe­cif­ic con­vey­ing para­met­ers such as re­quired con­vey­ing pres­sure, air de­mand, con­vey­ing ve­lo­city and achiev­able through­put ranges. These res­ults sup­port com­pan­ies in the re­li­able design of their sys­tems and provide a clear tech­nic­al basis for project plan­ning and eval­u­ation. 

‘With the new Test Cen­ter, we are cre­at­ing a ser­vice that provides our cus­tom­ers with early project se­cur­ity and trans­par­ency,’ says Rajesh Path­ak, Man­aging Dir­ect­or of Qlar In­dia. ‘The abil­ity to real­ist­ic­ally sim­u­late long con­vey­or dis­tances makes the fa­cil­ity an im­port­ant com­pon­ent for many in­dus­tries.’ The fa­cil­ity is also of stra­tegic im­port­ance glob­ally. ‘The de­mand for re­li­able con­vey­ing data is in­creas­ing world­wide,’ says Dr Jörg Ul­rich, CEO of the Qlar Group. ‘In ad­di­tion to the ex­ist­ing Test Cen­ter for ma­ter­i­al grind­ing, the pneu­mat­ic con­vey­ing tests of­fer our cus­tom­ers in Asia a test­ing en­vir­on­ment that is unique in this form and size.’

The new fa­cil­ity also cre­ates ad­di­tion­al jobs, in­clud­ing po­s­i­tions in mech­an­ic­al en­gin­eer­ing and elec­tric­al en­gin­eer­ing. Along­side tech­nic­al de­vel­op­ment, the ef­fi­ciency of con­vey­ing ap­plic­a­tions is be­com­ing an even stronger fo­cus: By test­ing dif­fer­ent ma­ter­i­al com­bin­a­tions, air con­sump­tion and thus also the en­ergy re­quire­ments of in­di­vidu­al con­vey­ing pro­cesses can be op­tim­ised in a tar­geted man­ner.
 

Ti­tan En­ter­prises designs its high-pres­sure Oval Gear flow meters spe­cific­ally for en­vir­on­ments where op­er­at­ing con­di­tions push com­pon­ents to their lim­its. These meters de­liv­er stable, re­peat­able meas­ure­ment across ex­treme pres­sures, fluc­tu­at­ing vis­cos­it­ies, and chem­ic­ally ag­gress­ive flu­ids - con­di­tions that quickly ex­pose the weak­nesses of less ro­bust tech­no­lo­gies.

High-Pres­sure Meas­ure­ment De­mands More

Hy­draul­ic and flu­id power sys­tems op­er­ate at pres­sures high enough to mag­ni­fy even minor in­ef­fi­cien­cies. In ap­plic­a­tions such as ad­dit­ive in­jec­tion, lub­ric­a­tion mon­it­or­ing, or hy­draul­ic ac­tu­ation, in­ac­cur­ate flow meas­ure­ment can lead to over­dos­ing, pre­ma­ture wear, en­ergy loss, or un­planned shut­downs.

This is why pos­it­ive dis­place­ment tech­no­lo­gies, par­tic­u­larly oval gear flow­met­ers, con­tin­ue to be widely spe­cified in high-pres­sure sys­tems. Their abil­ity to dir­ectly meas­ure volume, in­de­pend­ent of flow pro­file or tur­bu­lence, makes them es­pe­cially ef­fect­ive where pre­ci­sion and re­peat­ab­il­ity are non-ne­go­ti­able.

In­dus­tries that rely on high-pres­sure hy­draul­ic sys­tems in­clude aerospace, off­shore en­ergy, mar­ine propul­sion, heavy equip­ment, and high-per­form­ance auto­mot­ive en­gin­eer­ing. In oil and gas op­er­a­tions, the re­quire­ment is even more strin­gent, with flow meters ex­pec­ted to per­form re­li­ably in con­tinu­ous ser­vice while ex­posed to high pres­sure, high vis­cos­ity flu­ids, and ag­gress­ive chem­ic­als.

Design­ing for Pres­sure Starts with Test­ing

A com­pon­ent’s pres­sure rat­ing is only mean­ing­ful if it has been proven. Pres­sure test­ing is a crit­ic­al stage in val­id­at­ing the mech­an­ic­al in­teg­rity, safety, and long-term re­li­ab­il­ity of hy­draul­ic com­pon­ents.

Ti­tan En­ter­prises has a ded­ic­ated in-house pres­sure test fa­cil­ity to val­id­ate every as­pect of its oval gear flow meter designs. By pres­sure test­ing dur­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing and de­vel­op­ment, Ti­tan can identi­fy po­ten­tial fail­ure points early, veri­fy com­pli­ance with safety stand­ards, and en­sure each product is fit for pur­pose be­fore de­ploy­ment.

In-House Cap­ab­il­ity That Goes Bey­ond Com­pli­ance

Ti­tan’s Hy­drat­ron pres­sure test rig can test flow meters at pres­sures up to 1,400 Bar, ex­ceed­ing the max­im­um op­er­at­ing pres­sure of its cur­rent product range. This al­lows Ti­tan not only to qual­i­fy pro­duc­tion meters, in­clud­ing mod­els rated up to 950 Bar, but also to push designs bey­ond their nom­in­al lim­its dur­ing de­vel­op­ment.

This cap­ab­il­ity has ac­cel­er­ated product re­fine­ment, en­abling im­prove­ments in gear geo­metry, ma­ter­i­al se­lec­tion, and plat­form stand­ard­isa­tion. The res­ult is a more in­ter­change­able, ro­bust product range and the po­ten­tial to in­crease the max­im­um op­er­at­ing pres­sure of Ti­tan’s stand­ard oval gear flow meters by ap­prox­im­ately 50%.

The test fa­cil­ity also sup­ports ad­vanced R&D work, in­clud­ing cavit­a­tion sim­u­la­tion and the eval­u­ation of new ma­ter­i­als for fu­ture high-pres­sure ap­plic­a­tions.

Per­form­ance Where It Counts

Ti­tan’s Oval Gear flow­met­ers are de­signed to im­prove ac­cur­acy as vis­cos­ity in­creases, achiev­ing meas­ure­ment per­form­ance from ap­prox­im­ately ±1% down to ±0.1% of read­ing. This char­ac­ter­ist­ic makes them par­tic­u­larly suited to high-pres­sure ad­dit­ive in­jec­tion and lub­ric­a­tion sys­tems, where flu­ids of­ten fall out­side the op­er­at­ing en­vel­ope of oth­er meter tech­no­lo­gies.

With pres­sure rat­ings from 10 bar to 950 bar, op­er­at­ing tem­per­at­ures up to 150°C, and in­trins­ic­ally safe ATEX-ap­proved op­tions, the meters are en­gin­eered for long ser­vice life in haz­ard­ous and de­mand­ing en­vir­on­ments.

Built Around the Ap­plic­a­tion

Bey­ond its stand­ard flow meas­ure­ment products, Ti­tan works closely with OEM cus­tom­ers to de­vel­op cus­tom­ised flow meas­ure­ment solu­tions tailored to spe­cif­ic pres­sure, vis­cos­ity, and chem­ic­al com­pat­ib­il­ity re­quire­ments. This col­lab­or­at­ive ap­proach en­sures flow meters in­teg­rate seam­lessly in­to com­plex sys­tems across oil and gas, pet­ro­chem­ic­al pro­cessing, mar­ine, and emer­ging en­ergy sec­tors.

By com­bin­ing proven pos­it­ive dis­place­ment tech­no­logy with rig­or­ous pres­sure val­id­a­tion and in-house de­vel­op­ment cap­ab­il­ity, Ti­tan En­ter­prises de­liv­ers flow meas­ure­ment solu­tions that per­form re­li­ably when sys­tems are op­er­at­ing un­der pres­sure and when there is no mar­gin for er­ror.
 

TURCK is adding the FS501 flow sensor to its FS+ flu­id sensor series. The ro­bust IP67 device meas­ures flow ve­lo­city and volume flow in li­quid me­dia and also out­puts tem­per­at­ure val­ues. Users can freely con­fig­ure switch­ing and ana­log out­puts and be­ne­fit from easy in­teg­ra­tion in­to IO-Link en­vir­on­ments thanks to Smart Sensor Pro­file. The FS501 is suit­able for pipe dia­met­ers from 15 to 250 mm, cov­er­ing a wide range of ap­plic­a­tions in fact­ory auto­ma­tion.

The IO-Link in­ter­face ac­cord­ing to Smart Sensor Pro­file en­ables ac­cess to pro­cess data and func­tions such as Single Value Teach for stor­ing the cur­rent flow ve­lo­city as a switch­ing point, Dy­nam­ic Teach, and To­tal­izer. In Dy­nam­ic Teach mode, the sensor auto­mat­ic­ally ad­justs switch­ing points to chan­ging con­di­tions. The To­tal­izer func­tion can be used to de­term­ine con­sump­tion data for ma­chines—dir­ectly in the sensor.
 

AW-Lake an­nounces the launch of its TH Series High Ac­cur­acy Tur­bine Flow Meter. It is a pre­ci­sion li­quid flow meas­ure­ment solu­tion for de­mand­ing in­dus­tri­al ap­plic­a­tions where every frac­tion of a per­cent in ac­cur­acy mat­ters. Pre­ci­sion ma­chin­ing, tight in­tern­al tol­er­ances, and stain­less-steel con­struc­tion provide stable, long-term per­form­ance in con­tinu­ous op­er­a­tion. De­signed for low-vis­cos­ity li­quids such as oils, wa­ter, and many pro­cess chem­ic­als, the TH Tur­bine meter de­liv­ers labor­at­ory-grade per­form­ance in a rugged, field-ready pack­age.

High meas­ure­ment ac­cur­acy

The meas­ur­ing ac­cur­acy is spe­cified to ±0.5% un­der con­trolled con­di­tions with lin­ear­iz­a­tion. The re­peat­ab­il­ity of­fers ±0.1% for high-con­fid­ence flow con­trol. This ac­cur­acy sup­ports crit­ic­al op­er­a­tions such as batch­ing, dos­ing, blend­ing, and test stands where even small de­vi­ations can cre­ate scrap or off-spec product.  The series of­fers a all-wel­ded stain­less-steel con­struc­tion, hardened ro­tor sup­port, and pre­ci­sion bear­ings de­liv­er dur­ab­il­ity in harsh, high-duty-cycle sys­tems. The design sup­ports high op­er­at­ing pres­sures and broad flu­id tem­per­at­ure ranges for oil­field, pro­cess, and gen­er­al in­dus­tri­al ser­vice.

Flex­ible in­teg­ra­tion

With mul­tiple line sizes and flow ranges the flow meters cov­er ap­plic­a­tions from low-flow test loops to high-flow trans­fer lines. The tur­bine can be paired with elec­tron­ic dis­plays, trans­mit­ters, or wire­less to­tal­izers for seam­less in­teg­ra­tion with PLCs, DCS, and plant his­tor­i­ans. For en­gin­eers who re­quire a tur­bine flow meter that com­bines high ac­cur­acy & re­peat­ab­il­ity, fast re­sponse times, and a rugged design, the TH Series of­fers a tightly con­trolled meas­ure­ment plat­form for crit­ic­al li­quid pro­cesses.  

AMET­EK Level Meas­ure­ment Solu­tions (LMS) has ex­pan­ded its Mag­net­rol® branded Pulsar Mod­el R80 by in­tro­du­cing a newly de­veloped solids-meas­ure­ment an­tenna. This up­date en­ables the ex­ist­ing 80 GHz FM­CW radar plat­form to per­form re­li­ably in de­mand­ing bulk solids ap­plic­a­tions.

The new Pulsar Mod­el R80 solids an­tenna de­liv­ers im­proved meas­ure­ment cap­ab­il­ity through its high-fre­quency sig­nal, nar­row beam angle, and ad­vanced con­fig­ur­a­tion soft­ware. It meas­ures low-dielec­tric ma­ter­i­als and main­tains stable per­form­ance in en­vir­on­ments with dust, va­por, or un­even sur­face pro­files cre­ated dur­ing filling or empty­ing. The Pulsar Mod­el R80 trans­mit­ter is de­signed to make com­mis­sion­ing straight­for­ward while provid­ing con­sist­ent per­form­ance across a wide range of in­dus­tri­al en­vir­on­ments.

In­stall­a­tion op­tions in and out of tank

The new design of­fers 80 GHz FM­CW sig­nal with nar­row beam angles and is avail­able with 3”/150# and 4”/150# pro­cess con­nec­tions. The swiv­el-mount flange en­ables ac­cur­ate radar align­ment. For in-situ lens clean­ing a purge con­nec­tion is offered. The R80 has a meas­ur­ing range of up to 60 metres (200 feet) with a re­place­able trans­mit­ter head that main­tains the pro­cess seal. The Pulsar Mod­el R80 is suit­able for SIL 2 with 92.3% SFF and has FCC, ET­SI, and ISED ap­provals for both “In Tank” and “Out of Tank” in­stall­a­tions. It is the first radar trans­mit­ter for bulk solids de­veloped by AMET­EK Level Meas­ure­ment Solu­tions and provides cus­tom­ers with a new op­tion for in­dus­tri­al solids‑level meas­ure­ment.
 

The Krohne H250 M40 vari­able area flow­met­er re­ceives new SIL 2 cer­ti­fic­a­tions, set­ting a new bench­mark for func­tion­al safety of vari­able area flow­met­ers in the pro­cess in­dustry: cer­ti­fic­a­tion body ex­ida has awar­ded SIL 2 cer­ti­fic­a­tion to the device’s lim­it switches and, for the first time, to the device's 4...20 mA ana­logue out­put.

The cer­ti­fic­a­tion does not only in­clude the ran­dom fail­ure rates of the hard­ware, which were de­term­ined by an FMEDA and con­firmed with field data, but also proof of the sys­tem­at­ic cap­ab­il­ity of the soft­ware and hard­ware due to suit­able de­vel­op­ment and man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­cesses in ac­cord­ance with the re­quire­ments of IEC 61508:2010 Part 1-3. It re­places the pre­vi­ous man­u­fac­turer’s de­clar­a­tion (SIL 2 for lim­it switches and SIL 1 for the 4…20 mA out­put).

Re­li­able meas­ure­ment for li­quids and gases

The H250 M40 is the stand­ard vari­able area flow­met­er for ap­plic­a­tions in the pro­cess in­dus­tries and OEM sec­tor. It com­bines re­li­able meas­ure­ment of li­quids and gases with mod­ern com­mu­nic­a­tion and dia­gnost­ic func­tions. Ad­di­tion­al elec­tron­ic mod­ules can be ad­ded or re­placed at any time without in­ter­rupt­ing the pro­cess, al­low­ing the device’s func­tion­al­ity to be ad­ap­ted to new re­quire­ments – from ana­logue flow meas­ure­ment without aux­il­i­ary power to full di­git­al in­teg­ra­tion in­to field­bus sys­tems.

Ex­treme tem­per­at­ures and ag­gress­ive me­dia

The ro­bust all-met­al flow­met­er is avail­able in a wide range of ma­ter­i­als and con­fig­ur­a­tions and is suit­able for de­mand­ing pro­cess con­di­tions, in­clud­ing high pres­sures (up to 1000 barg / 14,500 psig), ex­treme tem­per­at­ures (–196…+400 °C / –320…+752 °F), and ag­gress­ive me­dia. It can also be in­stalled ho­ri­zont­ally or in ver­tic­al down­flow lines up to DN150 / 6"". Vari­ants for hy­gien­ic ap­plic­a­tions fur­ther en­hance the port­fo­lio. Ad­di­tion­al device and ap­plic­a­tion dia­gnostics – such as de­tec­tion of float block­ages, gas com­pres­sion os­cil­la­tions of the float or pulsat­ing flows – help to im­prove op­er­a­tion­al safety in de­mand­ing plant en­vir­on­ments and ex­tend the life­time of the device if cor­rect­ive meas­ures are taken in the ap­plic­a­tion on the basis of theses dia­gnostics.
 

With the launch of the Dew­Tect­or®, Coperion in­tro­duces an in­nov­at­ive mois­ture meas­ur­ing device de­signed to provide re­li­able, auto­mated on­line meas­ure­ments of sur­face mois­ture con­tent in bulk ma­ter­i­als, par­tic­u­larly plastic pel­lets. The pat­ent-pending device of­fers an eco­nom­ic­al, simple and re­li­able meth­od to help plastic man­u­fac­tur­ers and re­cyclers mon­it­or mois­ture levels more ef­fi­ciently. It ad­dresses a crit­ic­al chal­lenge faced by pro­cessors in main­tain­ing both product qual­ity and main­tain­ing com­pli­ance with in­dustry stand­ards.

The Dew­Tect­or uses a straight­for­ward ap­proach ─ it in­tro­duces a par­tial flow of bulk solids in­to a pres­sure-tight product cham­ber. The sys­tem de­term­ines the mois­ture con­tent by ana­lyz­ing the mois­ture re­leased in­to the air­flow. As the air ab­sorbs mois­ture, it is ana­lyzed by a hy­gro­met­er that meas­ures only wa­ter con­tent. This tar­geted de­tec­tion en­sures re­li­able res­ults un­af­fected by oth­er sub­stances or changes in ma­ter­i­al com­pos­i­tion. The sys­tem neither re­quires ex­tens­ive cal­ib­ra­tion, nor the use of chem­ic­als for dif­fer­ent ma­ter­i­als or re­cipes, mak­ing it easy to op­er­ate and main­tain. The sys­tem achieves an ac­cur­acy of +5% to −15% across mois­ture levels ran­ging from sev­er­al thou­sand ppm to a few hun­dred ppm, with up to ten meas­ure­ments per hour. 

Chal­lenges of plastics mois­ture meas­ure­ment 

Plastic man­u­fac­tur­ers of­ten face the chal­lenge of mois­ture en­ter­ing their fi­nal products, which can ori­gin­ate from vari­ous sources such as in­suf­fi­cient dry­ing, de­fect­ive wa­ter sep­ar­at­ors, leak­ing wash nozzles, or en­vir­on­ment­al factors like rain and con­dens­a­tion. If mois­ture levels go un­detec­ted, it can lead to costly product com­plaints and repu­ta­tion­al dam­ages. Ad­di­tion­ally, pro­cessors must ad­here to strict mois­ture con­tent lim­its to en­sure high-qual­ity out­put, and the re­cyc­ling sec­tor re­quires dry in­put ma­ter­i­als for ef­fect­ive pro­cessing.

Tra­di­tion­ally, mois­ture meas­ure­ment has been labor-in­tens­ive and prone to in­ac­curacies, of­ten re­ly­ing on sporad­ic manu­al as­sess­ments of re­l­at­ive hu­mid­ity in bags and con­tain­ers. Ex­ist­ing auto­mated meth­ods, such as ca­pa­cit­ive and mi­crowave res­on­ance tech­niques are typ­ic­ally com­plex, ex­pens­ive, and re­quire ex­tens­ive cal­ib­ra­tion for dif­fer­ent for­mu­la­tions, mak­ing them im­prac­tic­al for many users.

By sim­pli­fy­ing mois­ture meas­ure­ment and re­du­cing the labor and time spent on manu­al sampling and ana­lys­is, the Dew­Tect­or en­hances op­er­a­tion­al ef­fi­ciency while provid­ing ac­cur­ate, real-time data crit­ic­al for pro­cess con­trol.
 

Yokogawa Elec­tric an­nounces the re­lease of the OpreX™ Pres­sure Trans­mit­ter EJX S Series as the suc­cessor to its core EJX A lineup of plant field in­stru­ments. Build­ing on the proven sil­ic­on res­on­ant sensor tech­no­logy the EJX S Series of­fers en­hance­ments in ac­cur­acy, long-term sta­bil­ity, and dur­ab­il­ity that en­sure stable plant op­er­a­tions and im­prove main­ten­ance ef­fi­ciency.

Im­proved ac­cur­acy and sta­bil­ity 

The ac­cur­acy of the trans­mit­ters is in a range of ±0.025%, with op­tion­al spe­cific­a­tion code /HAC. The series of­fers a high long-term sta­bil­ity (±0.1% per 20 years) and range­ab­il­ity of up to 400:1. HART and PROFINET com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­to­cols are sup­por­ted. With an IP68 dust­proof and wa­ter­proof rat­ing, com­pli­ance with SIL2 re­quire­ments, and en­hanced noise im­munity, the EJX S Series is even more re­li­able and ro­bust. In ad­di­tion, a new col­or back­lit graph­ic dis­play sig­ni­fic­antly im­proves vis­ib­il­ity of pro­cess vari­ables and device status in­form­a­tion.

Stream­lined spe­cific­a­tions for re­duced costs

Com­pli­ance with a vari­ety of ex­plo­sion-proof stand­ards, sup­port for dual power con­nec­tions, and ad­vanced dia­gnost­ic func­tions are all provided as stand­ard fea­tures with the EJX S Series, al­low­ing these devices to cov­er a wider range of ap­plic­a­tions and re­du­cing the need for the or­der­ing of products with spe­cif­ic mod­el and suf­fix codes. Fur­ther­more, a mod­u­lar design al­lows parts re­place­ment and main­ten­ance work to be car­ried out eas­ily and ef­fi­ciently. To­geth­er, these char­ac­ter­ist­ics help to im­prove main­ten­ance ef­fi­ciency and re­duce in­vent­ory costs. In ad­di­tion, the LCD col­or dis­play sup­ports NAMUR NE107-com­pli­ant alert in­dic­a­tions, en­abling in­tu­it­ive re­cog­ni­tion of device status even from a dis­tance. This fa­cil­it­ates faster on-site in­spec­tions.

The OpreX Pres­sure Trans­mit­ter EJX S Series pres­sure trans­mit­ters were de­signed to re­duce en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact over the en­tire product li­fe­cycle. CO₂ emis­sions have been sig­ni­fic­antly re­duced dur­ing the pro­duc­tion pro­cess, help­ing cus­tom­ers re­duce their Scope 3 emis­sions. A mod­u­lar design al­lows for easy dis­as­sembly and dis­pos­al con­trib­utes to the op­tim­iz­a­tion of cus­tom­ers' main­ten­ance parts and in­vent­ory, as well as a re­duc­tion in en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact after use.
 

Optris an­nounces the ex­pan­sion of its suc­cess­ful CTi pyro­met­er port­fo­lio with the in­tro­duc­tion of the new CTi 1M and CTi 2M mod­els. De­signed for de­mand­ing in­dus­tri­al en­vir­on­ments, both in­frared sensors provide highly ac­cur­ate non-con­tact tem­per­at­ure meas­ure­ment for metals and high-tem­per­at­ure ap­plic­a­tions while main­tain­ing the com­pact and mod­u­lar CTi plat­form design. The CTi 1M op­er­ates at a short wavelength of 1.0 µm and cov­ers tem­per­at­ure ranges from 350 °C up to 2200 °C, mak­ing it par­tic­u­larly suit­able for steel, tung­sten, iron, and semi­con­duct­or pro­cesses. Its fast ex­pos­ure time of 110 µs and re­sponse time of only 320 µs en­able re­li­able mon­it­or­ing of rap­id thermal pro­cesses, while an op­tic­al res­ol­u­tion of up to 75:1 en­sures pre­cise meas­ure­ments even at longer dis­tances. 

Com­ple­ment­ing this mod­el, the CTi 2M fea­tures a 1.6 µm spec­tral range op­tim­ized for lower met­al tem­per­at­ures between 150 °C and 2000 °C. The short-wavelength design min­im­izes meas­ure­ment de­vi­ations caused by emissiv­ity changes and re­flec-tions, provid­ing stable read­ings in real pro­duc­tion en­vir­on­ments. With its mini­ature sens­ing head and ro­bust stain­less-steel con­struc­tion, the sensor in­teg­rates eas­ily in­to con­fined ma­chinery in­stall­a­tions. Both CTi M in­nov­a­tions fea­ture an even lower start­ing tem­per­at­ure than the pre­vi­ous CT series.

High Speed Meas­ure­ment for Dy­nam­ic Pro­cesses

With the CTi LT­fast, Optris in­tro­duces a solu­tion tailored for ex­tremely fast con­trol and mon­it­or­ing ap­plic­a­tions. Cov­er­ing a wide tem­per­at­ure range from –50 °C to 1050 °C, the sensor de­liv­ers re­sponse times down to 6 ms, en­abling pre­cise mon­it­or­ing of rap­idly chan­ging thermal pro­cesses. Op­er­at­ing in the 8–14 µm spec­tral range, the LT­fast mod­el is ideal for high-emissiv­ity tar­gets and lower tem­per­at­ure ap­plic­a­tions such as plastics pro­cessing, auto­ma­tion sys­tems, and fast pro­duc­tion lines. Its rugged sens­ing head with­stands am­bi­ent tem­per­at­ures up to 125 °C without cool­ing, while flex­ible ana­log and di­git­al in­ter­faces al­low seam­less in­teg­ra­tion in­to mod­ern auto­ma­tion en­vir­on­ments.

Flex­ible Plat­form with In­dus­tri­al Con­nectiv­ity

All new CTi mod­els fol­low Optris’ proven two-piece design with sep­ar­ated elec­tron­ics, in­teg­rated dis­play, and eas­ily ac­cess­ible pro­gram­ming keys. Ex­tens­ive in­ter­face op­tions in­clud­ing ana­log out­puts, A built-in USB in­ter­face, which was not avail­able in the pre­vi­ous CT series, RS485, Eth­er­net-based pro­to­cols, and in­dus­tri­al field­bus sys­tems en­sure straight­for­ward sys­tem in­teg­ra­tion and long-term scalab­il­ity.

The LS-1000 sub­mers­ible pres­sure sensor from WIKA is now cer­ti­fied in ac­cord­ance with the European ATEX and in­ter­na­tion­al IECEx dir­ect­ives. The sensor con­tinu­ously meas­ures the level of li­quid me­dia in in­dus­tri­al en­vir­on­ments. Thanks to the new ap­provals, com­pan­ies can now also use it in haz­ard­ous areas of ATEX zone 0 and 1 as well as IECEx zone 0, 1 and 2. This ap­plies to nu­mer­ous ap­plic­a­tions, for ex­ample in the pro­cess in­dustry, wastewa­ter and en­vir­on­ment­al tech­no­logy and power gen­er­a­tion. Typ­ic­al ap­plic­a­tions in­clude wastewa­ter lift­ing sta­tions, pump­ing sta­tions and oil and fuel tanks.

Main­ten­ance-free op­er­a­tion

The LS-1000 meas­ures levels hy­dro­stat­ic­ally from 1 ... 10 m [3.28 ... 32.81 ft]. Op­tim­al long-term sta­bil­ity of 0.2 % en­sures pre­cise meas­ured data and min­im­al sig­nal drift. Thanks to its ro­bust design, the stain­less-steel sub­mers­ible pres­sure sensor is per­man­ently sealed in ac­cord­ance with in­gress pro­tec­tion IP68. A spe­cially de­veloped cable provides ef­fect­ive strain re­lief, and pot­ting of the cable in­let provides ad­di­tion­al pro­tec­tion. Each in­di­vidu­al device un­der­goes a he­li­um leak test dur­ing the fi­nal in­spec­tion. Even the smal­lest leaks and hair­line cracks are de­tec­ted here. The sub­mers­ible pres­sure sensor is main­ten­ance-free, min­im­ising fail­ures, down­times and total cost of own­er­ship. It can be op­er­ated with a 5 V bat­tery, as the en­ergy-sav­ing ra­tiomet­ric 0.5 ... 4.5 V out­put sig­nal con­sumes less than 5 mA. This places such a low load on the bat­tery that it does not need to be re­placed for years.
 

Swiss-based Robotronic has partnered with Mitsubishi Electric’s Factory Automation EMEA division for more than two decades. Now, the two organisations are collaborating on a new low-footprint cell to help the pharmaceutical industry overcome record-high shortages across Europe in recent years for medicines ranging from children’s cough syrups through to antibiotics and even cancer treatments.

The growing demand, which has impacted patient treatment and quality of life, has led the European Medicines Agency to increasingly focus on one of the main causes of shortages - manufacturing and quality issues - with the aim of ultimately strengthening the fragile pharmaceutical supply chain.

Mike Weber, founder of Robotronic, says faster production is required to shorten lead times and cope with the ever-increasing demand.

“We are a Swiss company concentrating on machine building with robotic applications for the pharmaceutical industry, including everything from de-nesting and re-nesting, through to de-traying, re-traying, and palletising. We have specific expertise in vial and pre-filled syringe handling, offering solutions that deliver maximum efficiency with a small footprint, and enabling pharmaceutical manufacturers to rise to the challenges in their supply chain.”

One of the key challenges for Robotronics is compliance. “Pharmaceutical consistency is about more than quality,” says Mike. “It is also about regulatory compliance and safety.” He continues: “To get the required productivity, we need two robots working very closely together at high-speed, but we also need the assurance that the delicate products being handled will not be damaged in the process.”

The Robotronic choice is Mitsubishi Electric, specifically the FR series, a highly flexible robot with compact arm sizes that is equipped with SoftTouch technology. The result is a small footprint automation solution with increased productivity for handling pallets as small as 120cm x 80cm. Most importantly, the FR series has built-in compliance control that offers soft touch capability delivering zero product damage with no glass-to-glass contact, no broken glass and is easy-to-clean.

“The challenge was to have two robots operating side by side in a confined environment without compromising speed or precision,” says Mike. “With Mitsubishi Electric’s help, we have two robots driving at full speed within millimetres of each other with no possibility of collision. This enables our cells to process up to 600 products a minute, without really challenging the robots.”

He concludes: “The relationship between Robotronic and Mitsubishi Electric is a true technological partnership – a combination of deep pharmaceutical process expertise allied to best-in-class robotic technology. Together, we believe we can develop machines that can shorten lead times and create a more robust pharmaceutical supply chain.”
Stefan Knauf, Division Manager at Mitsubishi Electric Factory Automation – German Branch, adds: “The biggest challenge was enabling Robotronic to safely and continuously operate two robots side-by-side in a confined environment, without compromising speed or precision. Our FR series robots with additional servo axis perfectly matched their requirements to deliver high throughput from a small footprint.

“The unique, built-in compliance control also allows the robots to gently handle glass vials without the risk of damage. Ultimately, in pharmaceutical production, consistency isn't just about quality, it is about regulatory compliance and safety. Our relationship with Robotronic is a true technological partnership. Mike and his team bring deep pharmaceutical process expertise and we bring robotics innovation.”
 

With the new nominal sizes 80, 100, and 125, the Bosch Rexroth LC-8X 2-way cartridge valve is now available for an even wider range of applications. The integrated standard stem seal prevents gap filtration. All valve components are designed for operating pressures up to a maximum of 450 bar. This ensures that tightness and functionality are maintained even after 10 million load cycles at maximum switching power.

Higher efficiency

The flow-optimized design significantly reduce pressure losses in directional functions compared to the predecessor series LC-6X, nominal sizes 80 and 100, and LC-2X, nominal size 125, while also reducing heat and cooling requirements. A friction-optimized piston and the standard integrated stem seal minimize the risk of internal leakage as well as power loss and reduce energy consumption.
Resources are also used efficiently in packaging: The valves are packaged in shock-resistant round cups made from recycled material.

More standardization 

Standardizing the valve design simplifies project planning, engineering, installation, and maintenance. This lowers process costs, shortens delivery times, and minimizes downtime. The LC-8X is fully compatible with its predecessor models. Existing covers can be reused, with the exception of covers with stroke limitation. This conserves resources and reduces the effort required for modifications or retrofits. 
 

With the new PSR-MC35-EXI safety re­lay, Phoenix Con­tact is fur­ther ex­pand­ing its safety port­fo­lio. The product en­ables safe op­er­a­tion in de­mand­ing in­dus­tri­al en­vir­on­ments. It was spe­cific­ally de­veloped for use in zone 2 po­ten­tially ex­plos­ive areas. The device also has IECEx and ATEX ap­prov­al and there­fore meets in­ter­na­tion­al safety re­quire­ments.

Re­li­able and com­pact

The safety re­lay works re­li­ably un­der chal­len­ging con­di­tions. A coated PCB pro­tects against cor­ro­sion. The ex­ten­ded tem­per­at­ure range up to +60°C al­lows for use in nu­mer­ous pro­cess en­gin­eer­ing ap­plic­a­tions. It is par­tic­u­larly worth not­ing that the con­nec­ted equip­ment may even be used in zone 0 (gas) and zone 20 (dust). The com­pact design saves space in the con­trol cab­in­et. By us­ing proven re­lay tech­no­logy, the hous­ing width is just 17.5 mm. At the same time, the re­lay meets safety re­quire­ments up to SIL 3 and PL e. For flex­ible in­stall­a­tion re­quire­ments, the product is avail­able with either screw or Push-in con­nec­tion.
 

As nu­mer­ous in­dus­tri­al sec­tors un­der­go di­git­al­iz­a­tion, there is a grow­ing trend to­ward auto­ma­tion, trace­ab­il­ity, and pa­per­less pro­cesses and work­flows. Scan­ners are an im­port­ant com­pon­ent of ERP, MES, and MMS sys­tems and in­creas­ingly rely on 2D im­age pro­cessing such as QR codes, DataMat­rix, or op­tic­al char­ac­ter re­cog­ni­tion (OCR). This is where Pep­perl+Fuchs comes in with the new Ident-Ex® 02 wire­less read­er and scan­ner, which is cer­ti­fied for use in Zone 1/21, Zone 2/22, and Class I, II.

Com­pact form factor

To meet a wide range of scan­ning re­quire­ments, the Ident-Ex® 02 is avail­able in four dif­fer­ent vari­ants: Pock­et, Grip, Grip+, and Smart Grip. The basis for all con­fig­ur­a­tions is the Pock­et ver­sion, a small, handy pock­et-sized scan­ner – the light­est and smal­lest wire­less bar­code scan­ner for Zone 1/21 on the mar­ket. The Grip and Grip+ ver­sions com­ple­ment the com­pact Pock­et scan­ner with an er­go­nom­ic pis­tol grip with mag­net­ic and op­tion­al in-zone char­ging func­tion.

With a match­ing cradle, the Grip vari­ant can be com­bined and up­graded with the Smart-Ex® 03 and Smart-Ex® 203 smart­phones to form a Smart Grip – for seam­less and dir­ect feed­back dur­ing data col­lec­tion and trans­mis­sion to the smart­phone dis­play as part of the scan­ner. Since Bluetooth Clas­sic and 5.4 LE are sup­por­ted, this also ap­plies to any oth­er device that aligns with these stand­ards. This in­ter­op­er­ab­il­ity makes the Ident-Ex® 02 a highly flex­ible and power­ful scan­ner. The 1430 mAh lith­i­um-ion bat­tery of the scan­ning unit of­fers suf­fi­cient ca­pa­city for a full shift and does not re­quire an ex­tern­al power source. This, com­bined with its weight ad­vant­age, makes the Ident-Ex® 02 more flex­ible and easi­er to use.

All con­fig­ur­a­tions can be eas­ily charged via USB-C, the HMI vari­ant Grip+ can even be charged with­in Zone 1/21 via the S3/S4 in­ter­face of the VisuN­et GXP or with­in Zone 2/22 via the VisuN­et FLX sys­tem. For ad­ded con­veni­ence, the Grip, Grip+, and Smart Grip vari­ants can be charged us­ing a mag­net­ic char­ging cable. This saves ad­di­tion­al costs, as no ad­di­tion­al char­ging dock is re­quired. The Ident-Ex® 02 en­ables scans at dis­tances of up to 10 meters (flex range ver­sion) or up to 25 meters (long range ver­sion) and sup­ports all com­mon 1D and 2D sym­bolo­gies such as EAN-13, UPC-A, ISBN, In­dus­tri­al 25, QR code, DataMat­rix, and Maxicode.

Eas­ily cus­tom­iz­able

De­veloped and man­u­fac­tured in Ger­many, the Ident-Ex® 02 of­fers cus­tom­ers the flex­ib­il­ity to re­spond to their needs and device port­fo­lio. The grips and cradles can be ex­changed or cus­tom­ized as de­sired without the need for ad­di­tion­al ser­vice. Ac­cessor­ies avail­able for the Ident-Ex® 02 Grip and Smart Grip in­clude a leath­er hol­ster, a uni­ver­sal dock­ing sta­tion, and a mag­net­ic char­ging cable.

With its er­go­nom­ic design and high ac­cur­acy, the Ident-Ex® 02 is ideal for in­tens­ive scan­ning tasks. In ad­di­tion, the Ident-Ex® 02 has an in­teg­rated hard­ware aim­er and can also read dam­aged or poorly prin­ted bar­codes. It also de­liv­ers ex­cel­lent res­ults in low-light con­di­tions. This makes it suit­able for even the most de­mand­ing scan­ning tasks.
 

With the new DUL­CODOS SAFE-IBC F&B, ProM­in­ent is launch­ing a meter­ing and empty­ing sta­tion for in­ter­me­di­ate bulk con­tain­ers (IBCs) that has been spe­cially de­veloped for the re­quire­ments of the food and bever­age in­dustry. The sys­tem en­sures max­im­um pro­cess re­li­ab­il­ity and the highest level of food safety – from stor­age to the pre­cise meter­ing of food in­gredi­ents and ad­dit­ives. All com­pon­ents that come in­to con­tact with the me­di­um com­ply with the re­quire­ments of EC Reg­u­la­tions 1935/2004 and EN 10/2011. This re­duces the risk of con­tam­in­a­tion in sens­it­ive pro­duc­tion areas.

Con­tinu­ous sup­ply

An in­teg­rated in­ter­me­di­ate con­tain­er with a volume of around 80 litres en­sures that the dos­ing pro­cess con­tin­ues without in­ter­rup­tion even when chan­ging the IBC. Leak-proof coup­lings and food-grade hoses pre­vent drip­ping and leak­age. A wheel-ac­cess­ible drip tray safely col­lects any residues and re­duces the clean­ing ef­fort. A visu­al level in­dic­at­or and auto­mated alarm func­tions provide early warn­ing of re­filling or main­ten­ance re­quire­ments. Sensors con­tinu­ously mon­it­or the pro­cess, thereby in­creas­ing op­er­a­tion­al safety.

Mod­u­lar sys­tem for ef­fi­cient pro­cesses

The slightly in­clined in­stall­a­tion sur­face of the IBC en­sures that residues are al­most com­pletely emp­tied. This re­duces ma­ter­i­al costs and min­im­ises waste. The sys­tem is CIP-com­pat­ible (clean­ing in place) and can be cleaned without dis­mant­ling.

For pre­cise dos­ing tasks, the sta­tion can be com­bined with the ready-to-con­nect DUL­CODOS Com­pact DSKb F&B dos­ing sys­tem, which also com­plies with EC 1935/2004. The two com­pon­ents work to­geth­er seam­lessly to en­able the hy­gien­ic and con­trolled dos­ing of li­quid me­dia. The mod­u­lar design al­lows for straight­for­ward in­teg­ra­tion in­to ex­ist­ing sys­tems and can be flex­ibly ex­pan­ded as re­quired.

Op­tion­ally, the DUL­CO­LEVEL radar sensor can be used to meas­ure the fill level without con­tact and trans­mit the val­ues auto­mat­ic­ally. This en­ables op­er­at­ors to mon­it­or their pro­cesses, doc­u­ment them seam­lessly, and ful­fil their doc­u­ment­a­tion ob­lig­a­tions for qual­ity con­trol and audit pur­poses.
 

KNF’s four new in­tel­li­gent li­quid, gas and va­cu­um pumps fea­ture in­teg­rated sensor tech­no­logy of­fer ad­vanced closed-loop con­trol for achiev­ing and main­tain­ing flow, pres­sure or va­cu­um as well as pre­cise dosages. KNF an­nounces the in­tro­duc­tion of four in­nov­at­ive dia­phragm pump fea­tures for Flow, Pres­sure, and Va­cu­um Con­trol as well as Ver­sat­ile Dos­ing. 

Four New In­tel­li­gent Pumps

For li­quid meter­ing ap­plic­a­tions, KNF has de­veloped the FMS-FC 1.400. This dia­phragm pump with in­teg­rated Flow Con­trol uses a pre­cise flow sensor and en­sures pre­cise, ac­cur­ate, and stable li­quid de­liv­ery. It achieves a max­im­um flow rate of 3.4 l/min, a max­im­um pres­sure of 6 bar (rel.) and of­fers a max­im­um suc­tion height of 3 m H₂O.

An­oth­er in­tel­li­gent li­quid dia­phragm pump in­nov­a­tion is the FD 1.200 with Ver­sat­ile Dos­ing which de­liv­ers pre­cise and re­peat­able volumes for de­mand­ing ap­plic­a­tions. It uses ad­vanced step­per mo­tor tech­no­logy and act­ively ac­tu­ated valves. It of­fers a max­im­um flow rate of 40 ml/min, a max­im­um pres­sure of 6 bar (rel.), and a suc­tion height of at least 4.5 m H₂O.

Com­pact, chem­ic­ally res­ist­ant, and cus­tom­iz­able, it sets a new stand­ard for ac­cur­ate dos­ing. The new MGP 75 dia­phragm gas pump with in­tel­li­gent Pres­sure Con­trol main­tains pre­cise and con­sist­ent gas pres­sure even un­der chan­ging con­di­tions. Us­ing the latest KNF mo­tor tech­no­logy, it achieves a max­im­um flow rate of 78 l/min, a max­im­um pres­sure of 1 bar (rel.), and a max­im­um va­cu­um down to 25 mbar (abs.).

Equipped with the in­tel­li­gent fea­ture Va­cu­um Con­trol, the new mi­cro va­cu­um pump NVC 830 main­tains ex­act va­cu­um levels in de­mand­ing en­vir­on­ments. This com­pact pump de­liv­ers a max­im­um flow rate of 4.7 l/min and a max­im­um va­cu­um down to 55 mbar (abs.). 

In­tel­li­gent Fea­tures for Max­im­um Pre­ci­sion

Each pump in­teg­rates mod­ern sensor tech­no­logy and pro­pri­et­ary mo­tor con­trol to main­tain ex­act set­points, even un­der dy­nam­ic con­di­tions like chan­ging pres­sure or me­dia tem­per­at­ure. The in­teg­rated closed-loop con­trol re­duces en­gin­eer­ing ef­forts to a min­im­um. It makes the po­ten­tially dif­fi­cult in­teg­ra­tion of ex­tern­al sensor and de­vel­op­ment of new con­trol lo­gic from scratch ob­sol­ete. The pumps can op­er­ate autonom­ously or can be con­trolled via ana­log sig­nals such as con­trol voltage. For use in com­plex sys­tems, the pumps also sup­port mod­ern com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­to­cols like UART, en­abling seam­less in­teg­ra­tion in­to smart en­vir­on­ments. 

Cus­tom­iz­a­tion for De­mand­ing Ap­plic­a­tions

Based on a mod­u­lar design, the pumps can be cus­tom­ized quickly and cost-ef­fect­ively. Op­tions in­clude ma­ter­i­al se­lec­tion, elec­tric­al and line con­nec­tions, and di­git­al set­tings such as out­put set­point, ramp-up speed or max­im­um mo­tor speed lim­its, de­pend­ing on the pump. This flex­ib­il­ity make the pumps an ideal choice for crit­ic­al ap­plic­a­tions in in­dus­tries in­clud­ing med­ic­al tech­no­logy, ana­lyt­ic­al sys­tems, and in­dus­tri­al pro­cesses.