The pos­it­ive rev­en­ue trend was par­tic­u­larly driv­en by in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pan­sion. This off­set de­clines caused by mar­ket weak­ness in the pro­cess in­dustry with­in the DACH home mar­ket. At the same time, neg­at­ive cur­rency ef­fects weighed on growth out­side the euro­zone. Or­der in­take de­clined slightly due to sub­dued in­vest­ment activ­ity in many mar­kets.

“We have achieved slight growth in a sig­ni­fic­antly more chal­len­ging en­vir­on­ment. This demon­strates the re­si­li­ence of our busi­ness mod­el,” says Jörg de la Motte, CEO of the HI­MA Group. “At the same time, we see that in­vest­ment de­cisions are tak­ing longer in many mar­kets and that some projects are be­ing post­poned. This makes it all the more im­port­ant that we have sys­tem­at­ic­ally ex­pan­ded our in­ter­na­tion­al pres­ence, our di­git­al cap­ab­il­it­ies, and our role as a solu­tions pro­vider.”

Re­gion­ally, de­pend­ence on the do­mest­ic mar­ket (DACH) con­tin­ued to de­cline. The DACH re­gion’s share of rev­en­ue stood at 21 per­cent, com­pared to 24 per­cent in the pre­vi­ous year. Oth­er EU coun­tries con­trib­uted 19 per­cent, Asia-Pa­cific 16 per­cent, the Middle East 13 per­cent, the United King­dom and Nor­way 12 per­cent each, and the Amer­icas 7 per­cent. As a res­ult, HI­MA now gen­er­ates 79 per­cent of its rev­en­ue out­side the DACH re­gion.

A key mile­stone is the pub­lic­a­tion of the HI­MA Group’s first sus­tain­ab­il­ity re­port for the 2025 fisc­al year. Al­though the com­pany is not sub­ject to man­dat­ory re­port­ing re­quire­ments, the re­port sum­mar­izes its com­mit­ment to en­vir­on­ment­al, so­cial re­spons­ib­il­ity, and cor­por­ate gov­ernance activ­it­ies.

“As a fam­ily-owned busi­ness, HI­MA pur­sues eco­nom­ic, en­vir­on­ment­al, and so­cial goals to op­er­ate suc­cess­fully and re­spons­ibly in the long term while cre­at­ing sus­tain­able pro­spects for the next gen­er­a­tion,” ex­plains Stef­fen Phil­ipp, share­hold­er of the HI­MA Group. “From a share­hold­er’s per­spect­ive, sus­tain­able, prof­it­able growth is a de­cis­ive factor in this re­gard.”

Glob­al ini­ti­at­ives in­clude meas­ures to re­duce CO₂ emis­sions, more sus­tain­able trade show con­cepts, elec­tric vehicle char­ging sta­tions for em­ploy­ees, loc­al en­vir­on­ment­al and com­munity projects, as well as pro­grams for em­ploy­ee de­vel­op­ment, di­versity, and com­pli­ance.

In­teg­ra­tion of Sella Con­trols and Origo Solu­tions Strengthens Solu­tion Ex­pert­ise

The HI­MA Group’s stra­tegic de­vel­op­ment in 2025 was char­ac­ter­ized by in­ter­na­tion­al­iz­a­tion, di­git­al­iz­a­tion, and the ex­pan­sion of solu­tion ex­pert­ise. The in­teg­ra­tion of Sella Con­trols, which has been part of the HI­MA Group since Feb­ru­ary 2023, has been suc­cess­fully com­pleted. Sella Con­trols is po­si­tioned with­in the Group as a cen­ter of ex­cel­lence for rail tech­no­logy. 

The in­teg­ra­tion of Origo Solu­tions, which has been part of the HI­MA Group since Feb­ru­ary 2024, is also well ad­vanced and more than 90 per­cent com­plete. Origo Solu­tions par­tic­u­larly strengthens the Group’s pres­ence in Scand­inavia while en­han­cing its ex­pert­ise in tra­di­tion­al and re­new­able en­ergy mar­kets. With the new HI­MA Di­git­al unit, the di­git­al­iz­a­tion strategy is also en­ter­ing its next phase un­der the motto #safety­goes­di­git­al.

In­ter­na­tion­al Ex­pan­sion and Stra­tegic Part­ner­ships Ex­pan­ded

In­ter­na­tion­al ex­pan­sion has also con­tin­ued to ad­vance. In China, the new headquar­ters in Shang­hai was of­fi­cially opened in Decem­ber 2025. Fol­low­ing the open­ing of HI­MA In­dia in Novem­ber 2024, the com­pany’s pres­ence will be fur­ther ex­pan­ded in the near fu­ture. 

In Lat­in Amer­ica, HI­MA opened new en­tit­ies in Colom­bia and Peru. Colom­bia serves as a hub in Lat­in Amer­ica with a fo­cus on the pro­cess in­dustry, while the branch in Lima sup­ports projects in Peru and neigh­bor­ing coun­tries.

Ex­pand­ing stra­tegic part­ner­ships re­mains a key com­pon­ent of the strategy to be­come a solu­tions pro­vider. Col­lab­or­a­tion with gen­ua in the HI­MA Se­cur­ity Lab has been in­tens­i­fied.

To­geth­er with Sam­son, HI­MA is de­vel­op­ing joint HIPS and pipeline man­age­ment solu­tions for the hy­dro­car­bon and chem­ic­al in­dus­tries. The long-stand­ing col­lab­or­a­tion with Val­met is be­ing fur­ther deepened in the en­ergy, pulp, and pa­per sec­tors. To­geth­er with Hilscher, HI­MA com­bines func­tion­al safety with in­dus­tri­al com­mu­nic­a­tion for em­bed­ded sys­tems. In col­lab­or­a­tion with DEUTA-Werke, the SafeHMI solu­tion—powered by Icon­Trust—was de­veloped to en­hance op­er­at­or and dis­play safety in the pro­cess in­dustry and rail sec­tor; it is fully in­teg­rated in­to the HI­MA Safety Plat­form.

Out­look: Op­por­tun­it­ies through Di­git­al­iz­a­tion and En­ergy In­fra­struc­ture

For the cur­rent fisc­al year, the HI­MA Group con­tin­ues to an­ti­cip­ate a chal­len­ging en­vir­on­ment. Geo­pol­it­ic­al con­flicts, cur­rency ef­fects, and in­vest­ment cau­tion may delay or post­pone projects and ser­vices. At the same time, HI­MA sees long-term op­por­tun­it­ies, par­tic­u­larly in in­vest­ments in en­ergy in­fra­struc­ture, re­new­able en­ergy, hy­dro­gen, pipeline ex­pan­sions, and the di­git­al­iz­a­tion of safety-crit­ic­al pro­cesses. 

With HI­MA Di­git­al, the HI­MA Group is con­sol­id­at­ing its ex­pert­ise in di­git­al solu­tions. At the heart of this is hima360, an in­de­pend­ent, open di­git­al plat­form based on SCADA+ that con­nects safety-re­lated data, ap­plic­a­tions, and ser­vices across the safety li­fe­cycle. 

“The mar­ket en­vir­on­ment re­mains volat­ile,” says Jörg de la Motte. “At the same time, the de­mand for func­tion­al safety, OT se­cur­ity, and di­git­al solu­tions is grow­ing. This is ex­actly where we’re fo­cus­ing our ef­forts with the new HI­MA Di­git­al unit.”
 

Di­git­al trans­form­a­tion in oil and gas moves for­ward when tech­no­logy proves its value in real op­er­at­ing con­di­tions. AUTOMA 2026, tak­ing place on 5-6 Oc­to­ber in Am­s­ter­dam, centres the dis­cus­sion on this prac­tic­al di­men­sion of di­git­al ma­tur­ity. The Con­gress presents an in­dustry-driv­en agenda groun­ded in op­er­a­tion­al ex­per­i­ence across the value chain, with in­sights shared by lead­ing or­gan­isa­tions in­clud­ing Shell, Repsol and Linde.

Op­tim­isa­tion for as­set per­form­ance and re­si­li­ence

Over two days, lead­ers from more than 190 com­pan­ies meet with­in a closed-door format that in­cludes more than 260 B2B meet­ings. Ex­ec­ut­ives, en­gin­eers and di­git­al spe­cial­ists ex­plore how data in­fra­struc­ture, in­dus­tri­al soft­ware and in­tel­li­gent sys­tems strengthen de­cision-mak­ing, op­tim­ise as­set per­form­ance and sup­port op­er­a­tion­al re­si­li­ence. The dis­cus­sions fo­cus on ap­plied use of AI, autonom­ous op­er­a­tions and di­git­al twins, high­light­ing tan­gible res­ults in ef­fi­ciency and de­car­bon­isa­tion.

At AUTOMA 2026, stra­tegic pri­or­it­ies are ex­amined through en­gin­eer­ing prac­tice and real project im­ple­ment­a­tion. Case stud­ies and tech­nic­al ex­changes il­lus­trate how di­git­al solu­tions are in­teg­rated in­to com­plex in­dus­tri­al en­vir­on­ments, while col­lab­or­at­ive dia­logue between or­gan­isa­tions sup­ports faster and more ef­fect­ive de­ploy­ment.

You can re­gister and book your spot at or­gan­izer’s webpage: ht­tps://sh.bgs.group/42d 

Con­gress web­site: ht­tps://sh.bgs.group/42c
 

High-tem­per­at­ure elec­tro­lys­is is a highly ef­fi­cient pro­cess for man­u­fac­tur­ing hy­dro­gen that in­volves split­ting wa­ter va­por in­to hy­dro­gen and oxy­gen in an elec­tro­lys­is cell. The main ad­vant­age: The el­ev­ated tem­per­at­ures en­able in­dus­tri­al waste heat to be used as the dir­ect en­ergy source for the re­ac­tion. This re­duces the con­sump­tion of ex­pens­ive elec­tri­city, ac­cel­er­ates the elec­tro­chem­ic­al re­ac­tions and sig­ni­fic­antly im­proves over­all ef­fi­ciency.

A new sci­entif­ic and meth­od­o­lo­gic­al ap­proach by Fraunhofer IKTS

Re­search­ers at Fraunhofer IKTS have spent more than two dec­ades pur­su­ing an ex­tremely am­bi­tious goal: to make high-tem­per­at­ure fuel cells and elec­tro­lyz­ers so power­ful, ro­bust and cost-ef­fect­ive that they not only sup­port the en­ergy trans­ition but could sig­ni­fic­antly ac­cel­er­ate it. “Our goal right from the start was to build a bridge between elec­trons and mo­lecules,” says Mi­hails Kus­nezoff, De­part­ment Head for Ma­ter­i­als and Com­pon­ents and Head of En­ergy at Fraunhofer IKTS. The Fraunhofer IKTS team’s ap­proach dif­fers sig­ni­fic­antly from that of many com­pet­it­ors: In­stead of de­vel­op­ing sep­ar­ate con­cepts for elec­tro­lyz­ers and fuel cells, the re­search­ers have cre­ated a sys­tem that can op­er­ate in both modes. This was a ma­jor chal­lenge, as Kus­nezoff ex­plains: “While fuel cell op­er­a­tion re­quires low res­ist­ance and high voltages, elec­tro­lys­is de­mands long-term sta­bil­ity and prac­tic­ally ther­moneut­ral op­er­a­tion with min­im­al tem­per­at­ure gradi­ents.”

A ver­sat­ile stack suited to mass pro­duc­tion

In the lab, the re­search­ers de­veloped new elec­tro­lyte and elec­trode ma­ter­i­als and op­tim­ized mi­cro­struc­tures in or­der to build high-per­form­ance cells. “It’s only by com­bin­ing mul­tiple cells that we get what is known as a stack. This is the heart of the sys­tem and fa­cil­it­ates the scal­ing ne­ces­sary to pro­duce hy­dro­gen in in­dus­tri­al quant­it­ies,” ex­plains Sindy Mosch, re­search­er and mem­ber of the Ma­ter­i­als for Prin­ted Sys­tems work­ing group at Fraunhofer IKTS. The tech­nic­al break­through was ul­ti­mately achieved by a com­bin­a­tion of ma­ter­i­al in­nov­a­tion, design op­tim­iz­a­tion and a con­sist­ent fo­cus on in­dus­tri­al­iz­a­tion. “We had to learn to think of elec­tro­chem­ic­al, thermal and mech­an­ic­al ef­fects as an in­teg­rated sys­tem. It was only by pre­cisely co­ordin­at­ing mi­cro­struc­ture, sin­ter­ing be­ha­vi­or and pro­tect­ive lay­ers that we were able to de­vel­op a cell that can func­tion re­li­ably for years both un­der the de­mand­ing con­di­tions of elec­tro­lys­is and in fuel cell mode,” says Sindy Mosch.

The Fraunhofer IKTS stack works re­li­ably with­in an ex­ten­ded tem­per­at­ure range of 750°C to 850°C – a factor that plays a crit­ic­al role in the lifespan of an elec­tro­lyz­er. With­in this tem­per­at­ure range, it is pos­sible not only to con­vert wa­ter va­por and CO₂ in­to syn­thes­is gas by means of elec­tro­lys­is but also to use a vari­ety of fuels such as nat­ur­al gas, bio­gas, meth­an­ol, eth­an­ol and even green am­mo­nia in fuel cell mode for power gen­er­a­tion.

From lab to fact­ory: pi­lot pro­duc­tion in Arn­stadt

At the same time, the team ad­dressed the is­sue of in­dus­tri­al scale-up by re­design­ing the metal­lic bi­polar plate so that it can be ef­fi­ciently man­u­fac­tured in a single press­ing op­er­a­tion, be­sides de­vel­op­ing scal­able coat­ing pro­cesses for elec­trodes and con­tact/pro­tect­ive lay­ers. “For us, one thing was clear: Tech­no­logy can only con­trib­ute to the en­ergy trans­ition if it func­tions in the fact­ory and not just in the lab,” em­phas­izes Stefan Megel, Ceram­ic En­ergy Con­vert­ers Group Man­ager at Fraunhofer IKTS.

The tech­no­logy’s in­dus­tri­al read­i­ness has also im­pressed in­dustry play­ers: thyssen­k­rupp nu­cera iden­ti­fied the newly de­veloped stack as an es­pe­cially ef­fi­cient and prom­ising solu­tion in the field of high-tem­per­at­ure elec­tro­lys­is. With­in just 14 months, Fraunhofer IKTS es­tab­lished a par­tially auto­mated pi­lot pro­duc­tion line at its Arn­stadt loc­a­tion, thus lay­ing the found­a­tions for fur­ther scale-up to­geth­er with its in­dustry part­ner thyssen­k­rupp nu­cera. “The pi­lot phase has shown that our stacks com­bine sci­entif­ic ex­cel­lence with scal­able, cost-ef­fect­ive pro­duc­tion all the way up to gigawatt level,” says Stefan Megel.

Key tech­no­logy for in­dus­tri­al de­car­bon­iz­a­tion

Stack de­vel­op­ment at Fraunhofer IKTS has not only set new stand­ards of ef­fi­ciency and tech­no­lo­gic­al ver­sat­il­ity but is also pav­ing the way for the in­dus­tri­al use of elec­tri­city and waste heat for highly ef­fi­cient hy­dro­gen and syn­thes­is gas pro­duc­tion. The Fraunhofer IKTS team is thus con­trib­ut­ing dir­ectly to the glob­al en­ergy trans­ition while strength­en­ing Ger­many’s com­pet­it­ive­ness as an in­dus­tri­al loc­a­tion.

Emer­son an­nounced it will co-de­vel­op next-gen­er­a­tion cor­ro­sion man­age­ment solu­tions for the Saudi Ar­a­bi­an Oil Com­pany (Ara­mco), one of the world’s lead­ing in­teg­rated en­ergy and chem­ic­als com­pan­ies.

For Ara­mco, cor­ro­sion man­age­ment is a stra­tegic pri­or­ity tied dir­ectly to op­er­a­tion­al per­form­ance, safety and en­vir­on­ment­al re­spons­ib­il­ity. Con­tinu­ous cor­ro­sion mon­it­or­ing elim­in­ates dif­fi­cult, in­ef­fi­cient and dan­ger­ous manu­al cor­ro­sion meas­ure­ments and provides a re­li­able di­git­al data stream for im­proved de­cision-mak­ing.

Wall thick­ness mon­it­or­ing with con­tinu­ous data col­lec­tion 

As part of the cor­ro­sion re­search and de­vel­op­ment col­lab­or­a­tion, Ara­mco will com­bine its ex­pert­ise and in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­erty with Emer­son’s ad­vanced cor­ro­sion solu­tions to di­git­al­ise and trans­form cor­ro­sion man­age­ment. Emer­son will provide its tech­no­logy lead­er­ship in ul­tra­son­ic on­line cor­ro­sion mon­it­or­ing tech­no­logy; seam­less wire­less con­nectiv­ity for cor­ro­sion wall thick­ness mon­it­ors, and real-time and con­tinu­ous data col­lec­tion to de­vel­op a fit-for-pur­pose cor­ro­sion man­age­ment solu­tion for Ara­mco pro­cesses.

“Emer­son, with our com­plete tech­no­logy stack, is uniquely po­si­tioned to co-in­nov­ate the next-gen­er­a­tion cor­ro­sion mon­it­or­ing solu­tions that are cost-ef­fect­ive, scal­able and cus­tom­ised for Ara­mco,” said Ram Krish­nan, chief op­er­at­ing of­ficer for Emer­son. “We look for­ward to work­ing with Ara­mco to de­vel­op not only a cor­ro­sion solu­tion for its vast op­er­a­tions, but one that will also be a valu­able tool for many oth­er in­dus­tries.”
 

Siemens and Ger­man cli­mate tech­no­logy com­pany Ucaneo have partnered to scale elec­tro­chem­ic­al Dir­ect Air Cap­ture (DAC) tech­no­logy from in­dus­tri­al pi­lot to com­mer­cial scale – with Siemens de­ploy­ing the Siemens Xcel­er­at­or port­fo­lio as Ucaneo's pre­ferred auto­ma­tion and di­git­al­iz­a­tion part­ner. To­geth­er, the com­pan­ies are cre­at­ing a stand­ard­ized and glob­ally rep­lic­able auto­ma­tion plat­form that will en­able rap­id de­ploy­ment by Ucaneo and its li­censed op­er­at­ors world­wide. By 2035, Ucaneo tar­gets the an­nu­al cap­ture of half a gigaton of CO₂ from the at­mo­sphere, which is roughly equi­val­ent to can­cel­ling out the en­tire an­nu­al CO₂ emis­sions of Canada.

The part­ner­ship ad­dresses a grow­ing in­dus­tri­al chal­lenge: sec­tors from avi­ation to chem­ic­als in­creas­ingly re­quire ac­cess to sus­tain­ably sourced CO₂ as a feed­stock – and large-scale Dir­ect Air Cap­ture of­fers a scal­able solu­tion, re­pla­cing fossil-de­rived car­bon with CO₂ cap­tured dir­ectly from the at­mo­sphere.

First-of-a-kind DAC plant

Ucaneo has de­veloped an elec­tro­chem­ic­al DAC pro­cess, in­spired by the hu­man lung, that re­moves CO₂ dir­ectly from am­bi­ent air and de­liv­ers high-pur­ity CO₂ at over 99.9 per­cent pur­ity. The res­ult­ing CO₂ can be per­man­ently stored to gen­er­ate cer­ti­fied neg­at­ive emis­sions or used as a feed­stock for cli­mate-neut­ral products in­clud­ing sus­tain­able avi­ation fuel (SAF), meth­an­ol and food and bever­age ap­plic­a­tions. The fully elec­tri­fied pro­cess in­teg­rates dir­ectly with re­new­able en­ergy sources and re­sponds flex­ibly to grid con­di­tions and power mar­ket prices.

Ucaneo's first-of-a-kind in­dus­tri­al plant in Ber­lin (Ger­many), with a name­plate ca­pa­city of 150 met­ric tons of CO₂ per year, is set to be­come Ger­many's largest DAC fa­cil­ity upon com­mis­sion­ing in Ju­ly 2026. The fa­cil­ity will be of­fi­cially in­augured on Ju­ly 2 in Ber­lin. Part of the cap­tured CO₂ will be per­man­ently stored in geo­lo­gic­al form­a­tions, mak­ing the fa­cil­ity Ger­many's first veri­fied Dir­ect Air Cap­ture project com­bined with geo­lo­gic­al stor­age. This makes Ucaneo the first com­pany in Ger­many – and one of few glob­ally – to per­man­ently store CO₂ cap­tured through Dir­ect Air Cap­ture. A fol­low-on com­mer­cial plant with ap­prox­im­ately ten times the ca­pa­city is already in the de­vel­op­ment stages start­ing con­struc­tion next year.

Auto­ma­tion and di­git­al tech­no­logy 

Un­der the part­ner­ship, Siemens provides com­pre­hens­ive sup­port across pro­cess auto­ma­tion, in­stru­ment­a­tion and ana­lyt­ics, drive tech­no­logy and di­git­al­iz­a­tion. Siemens' pro­cess sim­u­la­tion soft­ware and con­trol­lers are already de­ployed at Ucaneo’s pi­lot plant, com­ple­men­ted by auto­ma­tion con­sult­ing ser­vices from Siemens. 

For sub­sequent project phases, Siemens' ad­vanced dis­trib­uted con­trol sys­tem Simat­ic PCS neo and ad­di­tion­al sim­u­la­tion soft­ware are planned. These solu­tions will en­able full pro­cess val­id­a­tion in a vir­tu­al en­vir­on­ment be­fore phys­ic­al com­mis­sion­ing, thereby re­du­cing tech­nic­al risk dur­ing scale-up. The stra­tegic ob­ject­ive is a stand­ard­ized, mod­u­larly scal­able auto­ma­tion tem­plate that can be rep­lic­ated across fu­ture Ucaneo plants and those of li­censed op­er­at­ors world­wide. This will help to ac­cel­er­ate glob­al rol­lout while safe­guard­ing cap­it­al ef­fi­ciency at each de­ploy­ment stage.

Grow­ing de­mand for in­dus­tri­al CO₂

The need for CO₂ as an in­put is grow­ing across mul­tiple in­dus­tri­al sec­tors – from sus­tain­able avi­ation fuel and meth­an­ol pro­duc­tion to food and bever­age ap­plic­a­tions. Reg­u­lat­ory re­quire­ments are ac­cel­er­at­ing that trend: un­der the Re­FuelEU ini­ti­at­ive, e-ker­osene must ac­count for 1.2 per­cent of all jet fuel sup­plied at EU air­ports by 2030, rising to 35 per­cent by 2050. The EU Car­bon Re­mov­al Cer­ti­fic­a­tion Frame­work (CRCF) is es­tab­lish­ing a cer­ti­fic­a­tion sys­tem for per­man­ent car­bon re­mov­al cred­its. For DAC op­er­at­ors, this es­tab­lishes a second com­mer­cial path­way along­side dir­ect CO₂ sales.

Over­voltage can be tran­si­ent or per­man­ent: Tran­si­ent over­voltages are brief voltage spikes caused, for ex­ample, by light­ning, switch­ing op­er­a­tions, or elec­tro­stat­ic dis­charges. Per­man­ent over­voltages last longer and can be triggered by power grid is­sues or neut­ral con­duct­or faults, among oth­er things. They of­ten lead to over­heat­ing and ac­cel­er­ated aging of equip­ment. As a gen­er­al rule: If the elec­tric­al voltage ex­ceeds the tol­er­ance range of the rated voltage, con­sequen­tial dam­age is prac­tic­ally in­ev­it­able.

The Root Cause Is In­tern­al

Over­voltage can enter a cir­cuit in three dif­fer­ent ways. In the case of gal­van­ic coup­ling, there is a dir­ect con­duct­ive con­nec­tion, such as via ground­ing or com­mon re­turn con­duct­ors. In­duct­ive coup­ling arises from chan­ging mag­net­ic fields that in­duce voltages in ad­ja­cent con­duct­ors. Ca­pa­cit­ive coup­ling is based on elec­tric fields between con­duct­ive parts with dif­fer­ent po­ten­tials. In­duct­ive and ca­pa­cit­ive ef­fects oc­cur without a dir­ect con­nec­tion between the con­duct­ors.

Ex­tern­al causes such as light­ning strikes or load switch­ing in the power grid trig­ger strong pulses and have a high po­ten­tial for dam­age. However, they ac­count for only about one-fifth of the in­cid­ents. The re­main­ing 80 per­cent of surges ori­gin­ate with­in the sys­tems them­selves. Causes here in­clude switch­ing op­er­a­tions, elec­tro­stat­ic dis­charges, re­flec­tions in long lines, coup­ling between par­al­lel lines, and in­ad­equate ground­ing.

Typ­ic­al Con­sequences 

In auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy, the con­sequences of over­voltage of­ten do not mani­fest as clearly iden­ti­fi­able in­di­vidu­al dam­age. Rather, typ­ic­al is­sues are mal­func­tions that are dif­fi­cult to ana­lyse and at­trib­ute. For ex­ample, when a con­tact­or or re­lay is switched off, the col­lapsing mag­net­ic field can gen­er­ate a voltage spike – di­git­al in­puts flick­er, the PLC re­ports er­rors, or auto­mat­ic­ally re­starts. Fre­quency con­vert­ers and power elec­tron­ics gen­er­ate steep voltage tran­si­ents through fast switch­ing op­er­a­tions, which can in­ter­fere with sensors, ana­log sig­nals, and bus sys­tems.

Long sensor cables are also sus­cept­ible. Re­flec­tions can su­per­im­pose sig­nals and lead to in­cor­rect meas­ured val­ues, com­mu­nic­a­tion er­rors, or ghost sig­nals. If the con­trol sys­tem and power sup­ply are both fed via the same 24-V line, switch­ing lar­ger loads on or off can cause voltage dips and spikes. Here, too, this can res­ult in PLC re­sets, failed I/O mod­ules, or con­nec­tion in­ter­rup­tions on field devices.

The eco­nom­ic dam­age typ­ic­ally far ex­ceeds the value of the dam­aged com­pon­ent and the cost of re­pairs. Down­time, re­start­ing, troubleshoot­ing, pro­duc­tion scrap, de­liv­ery delays, and dam­age to the com­pany’s repu­ta­tion can add up to many times the purely tech­nic­al dam­age. Creep­ing equip­ment dam­age is also par­tic­u­larly prob­lem­at­ic: sensors drift, power sup­plies be­come un­stable, and I/O mod­ules fail weeks after the event. Such faults tie up per­son­nel and of­ten lead to the re­place­ment of com­pon­ents on a pre­cau­tion­ary basis. As a rule, the total costs of a single dam­age event already far ex­ceed the in­vest­ment cost for surge pro­tec­tion.

Cus­tom­ized Pro­tec­tion

Ef­fect­ive pro­tec­tion against over­voltage re­quires com­pon­ents that are com­pat­ible with the sys­tem ar­chi­tec­ture. For sig­nal lines, for ex­ample, it makes a dif­fer­ence wheth­er the sig­nal cir­cuit is groun­ded or not. For groun­ded sig­nal lines, a defined pro­tec­tion level from the line to ground is re­quired. For un­groun­ded sig­nal cir­cuits, a high­er in­su­la­tion voltage from the line to ground is ne­ces­sary. The rated voltage also plays an im­port­ant role in the se­lec­tion of pro­tec­tion com­pon­ents: 24-V sig­nal cir­cuits have dif­fer­ent re­quire­ments than ap­plic­a­tions in the mil­li­volt range.

Among the most com­monly used pro­tec­tion com­pon­ents are gas dis­charge tubes, sup­press­or di­odes, and varis­tors. They dif­fer primar­ily in their re­ac­tion rate and dis­sip­a­tion ca­pa­city – the faster the re­ac­tion rate, the lower the ca­pa­city, and vice versa. Gas dis­charge tubes can dis­sip­ate high en­er­gies but re­act com­par­at­ively slowly. Varis­tors re­act faster and are fre­quently used for gen­er­al device pro­tec­tion against voltage spikes. Sup­press­or di­odes re­act ex­tremely quickly and lim­it the voltage very pre­cisely, but can only ab­sorb smal­ler amounts of en­ergy. 

Com­plete Port­fo­lio and Com­pre­hens­ive Solu­tions

Pep­perl+Fuchs’ surge pro­tec­tion bar­ri­ers are primar­ily de­signed as hy­brid pro­tec­tion cir­cuits that com­bine vari­ous com­pon­ents. For ex­ample, a first stage with gas dis­charge tubes clamps high voltages and di­verts large cur­rents. A second stage with sup­press­or di­odes lim­its the re­main­ing re­sid­ual en­ergy to a safe level.

The port­fo­lio of­fers com­plete surge pro­tec­tion for auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy, in­clud­ing ac­cessor­ies and in com­bin­a­tion with ex­plo­sion pro­tec­tion, from a single source. The solu­tions from the Man­nheim-based man­u­fac­turer are avail­able for 4–20 mA sig­nals, Eth­er­net-APL, and field­buses, and are suit­able for in­trins­ic­ally safe cir­cuits. The surge pro­tec­tion bar­ri­ers can be sup­plied with stand­ard threads for screw-in in­stall­a­tion or for mount­ing on a DIN mount­ing rail. There is also a piggy­back solu­tion for field­buses: the mod­ules can be plugged dir­ectly onto the field bar­ri­er or the Seg­ment Pro­tect­or. This even elim­in­ates the need for an in­ter­me­di­ate wir­ing level in the field junc­tion box. An over­view of the most im­port­ant mod­ule series:

• M-LB-4000 – two-part sys­tem with a mod­u­lar design con­sist­ing of a base and pro­tec­tion mod­ule, device re­place­ment dur­ing op­er­a­tion without re­wir­ing, and loop dis­con­nect func­tion,
• M-LB-2000 – com­pact base sys­tem for DIN rail mount­ing, only 6 mm mod­ule width, loop dis­con­nect func­tion,
• M-LB-(Ex)26 – for 3-wire ap­plic­a­tions with very low rated voltage,
• M-LB-* – Pro­tec­tion mod­ules for 115/230 V sup­ply lines,
• P-LB – Pro­tec­tion mod­ule for 20 mm wide isol­at­or mod­ules of the K-Sys­tem, space-sav­ing on the field side,
• DP-LBF – Surge pro­tect­ors for FOUND­A­TION Field­bus H1 and PROFIB­US PA, con­trol cab­in­et in­stall­a­tion on the DIN mount­ing rail or in the field­bus dis­trib­ut­or,
• TPH-LBF – Plug-in surge pro­tec­tion mod­ule for trunk in­stall­a­tion on the PROFIB­US Power Hub (“piggy­back”), for FOUND­A­TION Field­bus H1 and PROFIB­US PA,
• M-LBAS – Surge pro­tect­ors for Eth­er­net-APL, con­trol cab­in­et in­stall­a­tion on DIN mount­ing rail, with dir­ect or in­dir­ect shield ground­ing,
• FN-LBAS – Screw-in mod­ules for Eth­er­net-APL/field device mount­ing, avail­able with all stand­ard threads.
   

In ad­di­tion to in­di­vidu­al mod­ules, users can also ob­tain cus­tom, fully wired, and cer­ti­fi­able en­clos­ure solu­tions. The ex­perts at Pep­perl+Fuchs of­fer com­pre­hens­ive con­sult­ing, plan­ning, and im­ple­ment­a­tion sup­port.
 

A slightly un­der­filled tray. A seal that doesn’t fully bond. A trace of product caught where it shouldn’t be. In­di­vidu­ally, they seem minor. But mul­ti­plied across thou­sands of units per hour, they turn in­to waste, re­work, com­plaints and some­times re­calls. And when that hap­pens, it’s not just the busi­ness that feels it. Pro­duc­tion teams face pres­sure. Qual­ity man­agers an­swer dif­fi­cult ques­tions. Con­sumers lose trust.

Many man­u­fac­tur­ers still rely heav­ily on visu­al in­spec­tion to catch these is­sues. The real­ity is simple. What you can see is not al­ways what is hap­pen­ing.

The Real Risk on the Filling Line

Filling and seal­ing are de­cept­ively com­plex stages as speeds are high, ma­ter­i­als vary, and en­vir­on­ment­al con­di­tions can shift throughout the day. Even minor tem­per­at­ure in­con­sist­en­cies at the seal point can af­fect in­teg­rity.

Manu­al in­spec­tion and stand­ard vis­ion sys­tems have their place, but have lim­its; sampling means some packs are nev­er checked. Op­er­at­ors ro­tate. Fa­tigue sets in. Opaque or mul­tilay­er pack­aging hides de­fects that tra­di­tion­al cam­er­as can­not eas­ily de­tect. 

Weak or con­tam­in­ated seals com­prom­ise shelf life and, in the worst cases, food safety, high­light­ing the im­port­ance of seal in­teg­rity mon­it­or­ing.

When an is­sue es­capes the line, the con­sequences move fast. Pro­duc­tion stops, stock is quar­ant­ined, and teams work late to con­tain the dam­age. But it doesn’t end at the fact­ory gates; products may be pulled from shelves, cus­tom­ers in­con­veni­enced, and in ser­i­ous cases, con­sumers put at risk. The fin­an­cial cost is vis­ible, and the hu­man cost is felt.

Qual­ity Con­trol Without Blind Spots

Thermal ima­ging adds a dif­fer­ent lay­er of con­trol. In­stead of re­ly­ing on sur­face ap­pear­ance, it meas­ures heat dis­tri­bu­tion as seals are formed and products move through the line.

The Flir A70 Smart Sensor cap­tures de­tailed thermal pat­terns at pro­duc­tion speed. Vari­ations in tem­per­at­ure high­light un­der­fills, trapped product in the seal area and in­con­sist­ent seal­ing pres­sure, even through opaque or prin­ted pack­aging.

This is not sampling. It is con­tinu­ous, 100 per cent in-line in­spec­tion. Every pack. Every cycle. No sampling gaps. De­fects can be re­jec­ted im­me­di­ately, be­fore they pro­gress fur­ther down­stream or leave the fa­cil­ity, re­du­cing sur­prises.

From Check­ing to Con­trolling

When thermal in­spec­tion is in­teg­rated in­to ex­ist­ing con­trol sys­tems, qual­ity shifts from re­act­ive check­ing to pro­cess con­trol.

Data feeds dir­ectly in­to the plant’s ex­ist­ing plat­forms, cre­at­ing a clear, audit­able re­cord and sup­port­ing HAC­CP and BRCGS re­quire­ments. Edge pro­cessing en­sures de­cisions hap­pen in­stantly, without slow­ing the line.

For op­er­a­tions teams, the im­pact is prac­tic­al and meas­ur­able:

• Less product giveaway 
• Few­er seal-re­lated re­jects 
• Re­duced re­work and down­time 
• Stronger com­pli­ance doc­u­ment­a­tion
• Great­er con­fid­ence dur­ing audits
   

Most im­port­antly, it re­duces the stress that comes with un­cer­tainty. When op­er­a­tions teams can see ex­actly what is hap­pen­ing at the seal point, they make de­cisions earli­er and have con­fid­ence that the pro­cess is un­der con­trol.

Pro­tect­ing More Than Product

In food and bever­age man­u­fac­tur­ing, qual­ity fail­ures are not just tech­nic­al events. They af­fect people, put­ting repu­ta­tion at risk and un­der­min­ing con­sumer con­fid­ence.
Filling Line and Seal In­spec­tion us­ing thermal ima­ging closes a crit­ic­al gap. It veri­fies fill levels and seal in­teg­rity on every unit without adding manu­al work­load or slow­ing pro­duc­tion.
Be­cause qual­ity as­sur­ance should not de­pend on chance, eye­sight, or end-of-line dis­cov­ery, it should be built in­to the pro­cess, pro­tect­ing product, per­form­ance and, most im­port­antly, people.
 

The new WIKA FLC-CS4 from the ClampSon­icTM in­stru­ment series fea­tures a con­tact­less clamp-on design. When moun­ted on the out­side of a pipe, the in­stru­ment can meas­ure flow non-in­vas­ively in both dir­ec­tions. The trans­ducers use the prop­er­ties of sound waves to safely and ef­fi­ciently mon­it­or cor­ros­ive, ab­ras­ive and highly vis­cous li­quids. Ul­tra­son­ic tech­no­logy en­sures high ac­cur­acy over a wide meas­ur­ing range. Ad­di­tion­al meas­ure­ment para­met­ers that can be re­cor­ded in­clude tem­per­at­ure, dens­ity, con­cen­tra­tion and cal­or­if­ic value. This makes the flow meter a com­pre­hens­ive solu­tion for vari­ous ap­plic­a­tions, in­clud­ing ret­ro­fits and sampling in­spec­tions. Typ­ic­al ap­plic­a­tion areas are, for ex­ample, min­ing, pa­per pro­duc­tion, the food and bever­ages in­dustry, heat­ing, vent­il­a­tion and air-con­di­tion­ing or wa­ter and wastewa­ter in­fra­struc­ture.

Key­less op­er­a­tion 

The FLC-CS4 can be eas­ily con­figured via an in­tu­it­ive user in­ter­face – thanks to in­teg­rated Wi-Fi from a re­mote loc­a­tion as well as dir­ectly in the field. With the WIKA WebApp, op­er­at­ors can keep track of their meas­ured data at any time. The user in­ter­face clearly dis­plays se­lec­ted para­met­ers for two streams to­geth­er with de­tailed meas­ure­ment in­form­a­tion. Real-time dia­gnostics dis­play­ing wave­form data and in­stall­a­tion para­met­ers en­sure seam­less pro­cess mon­it­or­ing. In­stead of phys­ic­al keys, the in­stru­ment is op­er­ated with touch and ges­ture con­trol. Moreover, it fea­tures a full-col­our, high-res­ol­u­tion IPS LC dis­play provid­ing op­tim­al read­ab­il­ity un­der dir­ect sun­light.

The flow meter is avail­able in two ver­sions: a wire­less ver­sion and a field ver­sion. Both ver­sions in­clude an elec­tron­ic unit and two trans­ducers. The field ver­sion also comes with a power sup­ply and com­mu­nic­a­tion box, en­abling seam­less in­teg­ra­tion in­to PLC (pro­gram­mable lo­gic con­trol­ler) eco­sys­tems. This al­lows for an isol­ated power con­nec­tion and trouble-free com­mu­nic­a­tion in the field.
 

The Krohne IFC 400 sig­nal con­vert­er is de­signed for use with the proven sensors of the OP­TI­FLUX and WA­TER­FLUX fam­il­ies. Typ­ic­al areas of ap­plic­a­tion in­clude the chem­ic­al and pet­ro­chem­ic­al in­dus­tries, wa­ter and wastewa­ter ap­plic­a­tions, the food and bever­age in­dustry, and the min­ing and en­ergy sec­tors. It is spe­cific­ally aimed at de­mand­ing pro­cesses re­quir­ing highest meas­ure­ment ac­cur­acy, ad­vanced pro­cess and device dia­gnostics, and wire­less device veri­fic­a­tion. In ad­di­tion to en­hanced self- and pro­cess dia­gnostics provided by the in­teg­rated OP­TICHECK tech­no­logy, it of­fers a NAMUR NE 107 status in­dic­a­tion and a wide range of com­mu­nic­a­tion op­tions.

Mo­bile mon­it­or­ing and para­met­risa­tion app

Para­met­risa­tion, mon­it­or­ing and veri­fic­a­tion of the field device can be car­ried out via Bluetooth. Us­ing the OP­TICHECK Mo­bile App or a DTM, for ex­ample, Level 0 or Level 1 veri­fic­a­tion can be per­formed dur­ing op­er­a­tion. A de­tailed veri­fic­a­tion re­port is gen­er­ated auto­mat­ic­ally.

Sta­bil­ising meas­ure­ments with MPO

A par­tic­u­lar high­light is the in­teg­rated Multi-Phase Op­er­a­tion (MPO) tech­no­logy. In many ap­plic­a­tions, pro­cess con­di­tions do not meet the ideal re­quire­ments for elec­tro­mag­net­ic flow meas­ure­ment. Gas en­train­ment, solids con­tent or elec­tro­mag­net­ic dis­turb­ances of­ten lead to sig­nal in­stabil­ity or even meas­ure­ment fail­ure.

This is where the IFC 400’s MPO tech­no­logy steps in: in­tel­li­gent sig­nal pro­cessing al­gorithms sta­bil­ise the meas­ure­ment pro­cess and en­able con­tinu­ous meas­ure­ment with stable, re­peat­able read­ings, even un­der the chal­len­ging pro­cess con­di­tions de­scribed.

In­teg­rated Auto­mated Par­tial Proof Test­ing

The IFC 400 is SIL2/3-cer­ti­fied for use in safety in­stru­mented sys­tems and is avail­able in both com­pact and re­mote ver­sions. Thanks to the in­teg­rated Auto­mated Par­tial Proof Test­ing func­tion­al­ity, the device can be par­tially tested by the safety sys­tem in SIL mode up to a test cov­er­age of 75%, sig­ni­fic­antly con­trib­ut­ing to ex­ten­ded proof test in­ter­vals.

The com­bin­a­tion of high meas­ure­ment sta­bil­ity, ad­vanced dia­gnost­ic cap­ab­il­it­ies and the new MPO tech­no­logy rep­res­ents a sig­ni­fic­ant step for­ward in elec­tro­mag­net­ic flow meas­ure­ment – par­tic­u­larly for de­mand­ing ap­plic­a­tions.
 

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.
 

Emer­son an­nounced the re­lease of PEX liners for its Rose­mount™ 8750W Mag­net­ic Flow Meter, Rose­mount 8705 Flanged Mag­net­ic Flow Meter and Rose­mount MS Mag­net­ic Flow Meter sensors de­signed for wa­ter/wastewa­ter and oth­er slurry or ab­ras­ive ap­plic­a­tions. The new PEX liner gives users a longer last­ing, PFAS free and more cost-ef­fect­ive flow meter solu­tion that sim­pli­fies stock­ing and com­pli­ance while im­prov­ing re­li­ab­il­ity in chem­ic­ally ag­gress­ive con­di­tions.

Ad­dress­ing PFAS-con­cerns 

Ex­ist­ing liner solu­tions have re­l­at­ively poor wear res­ist­ance to both chem­ic­al at­tack and ab­ras­ive slur­ries, emit­ting harm­ful chem­ic­als as they wear. These solu­tions are also ex­pens­ive to pur­chase and main­tain, with liner flar­ing of­ten oc­cur­ring if meters are not in­stalled promptly or re­moved tem­por­ar­ily and then re­in­stalled. Ex­ist­ing solu­tions also present stock­ing and in­vent­ory chal­lenges be­cause dif­fer­ent ap­plic­a­tions re­quire dif­fer­ent liner types, an is­sue com­poun­ded by their re­l­at­ively high cost. To ad­dress these is­sues, Rose­mount mag­net­ic flow meters now provide a PEX liner op­tion that is not avail­able from oth­er sup­pli­ers. This ex­clus­iv­ity en­ables end users to ad­dress per- and poly­fluoroal­kyl sub­stances (PFAS) con­cerns and dur­ab­il­ity chal­lenges, without chan­ging meas­ure­ment tech­no­logy or sup­pli­ers.

High ab­ra­sion res­ist­ance

PEX liners for­mu­lated without PFAS help end users re­spond to in­creas­ing reg­u­lat­ory, en­vir­on­ment­al and pub­lic scru­tiny, while main­tain­ing liner per­form­ance. This sim­pli­fies ma­ter­i­al se­lec­tion and stock­ing com­pared to fluoro­poly­mer-based liners, as the lat­ter can dif­fer in ma­ter­i­als of con­struc­tion, de­pend­ing on the ap­plic­a­tion. The PEX liners’ cross­linked mo­lecu­lar struc­ture de­liv­ers high ab­ra­sion res­ist­ance, mak­ing it suit­able for wastewa­ter, slur­ries and oth­er ap­plic­a­tions with en­trained solids where liner wear can re­duce product life. Even with all these ad­vant­ages, PEX liners are typ­ic­ally less ex­pens­ive than al­tern­at­ive solu­tions. PEX liners are avail­able now for line sizes up to 8 inches, with liners for lar­ger line sizes un­der de­vel­op­ment.
 

HIKMICRO’s introduces the LRG10 radar level meter series. The high-performance instruments deliver accurate, stable level measurements for demanding sectors, including water management, food and beverage, petrochemical, life sciences and the chemical industry.

At the core of the LRG10 is advanced 80 GHz FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) radar technology, delivering high-resolution level measurements with a small 3° beam angle and accuracy up to ±2 mm. Compared with other radar systems, the LRG10 series provides more focused detection and significantly improved signal clarity, ensuring consistent measurement.

AI-based false echo suppression

With a maximum range of 120 m, the device supports the continuous level monitoring of liquids, slurries, and granular (bulk solid) materials across applications that extend from individual storage tanks to large-scale warehouses and reservoirs. Importantly, HIKMICRO has engineered the instrument for reliability in complex scenarios. A combination of AI-based false echo suppression and intelligent interference shielding enables stable performance in environments featuring dust, steam, agitation, or volatile gases. 

Engineered for practical performance

The device can adapt to diverse operational requirements. Multiple antenna configurations and mounting options enable deployment across a broad range of vessels and process conditions, including high-temperature and high-pressure environments. A self-learning algorithm continuously optimizes performance based on real-time data, improving adaptability without manual recalibration. Response times of under a second make the LRG10 series ideal for fast-moving processes like reaction vessels, while low power consumption ensures easy integration into existing infrastructure. Bluetooth-enabled configuration and remote set-up capabilities reduce the time and effort required during installation and commissioning.

A unified industrial platform

The LRG10 series forms part of a comprehensive HIKMICRO industrial platform that unites production control, predictive maintenance, and safety within a single, affordable solution. Combining instrumentation with established capabilities in thermal imaging and acoustic sensing enables customers to monitor processes, detect faults early, and optimize performance through a fully integrated ecosystem.
 

When two aqueous li­quids of dif­fer­ent salt con­cen­tra­tions are sep­ar­ated by a semi-per­meable mem­brane, a nat­ur­al force causes the two li­quids to mix. This nat­ur­al force is called ‘os­mot­ic pres­sure’. The li­quid with the lower con­cen­tra­tion at­tempts to pass through the mem­brane in­to the li­quid with the high­er con­cen­tra­tion. This pro­cess gen­er­ates a meas­ur­able pres­sure – os­mot­ic pres­sure.

We are all fa­mil­i­ar with this in prac­tice. Ripe fruit tends to burst when it is hit by rain­drops. The rain­wa­ter, which con­tains little salt, pen­et­rates the fruit's skin (mem­brane) and enters the fruit it­self, where the juice is more con­cen­trated. This can cause the skin to burst.

In tech­nic­al ap­plic­a­tions, the term 're­verse os­mos­is' (RO) de­scribes the pro­cess of re­vers­ing os­mos­is by ap­ply­ing ar­ti­fi­cial counter-pres­sure us­ing a pump. In this pro­cess, the salti­er li­quid (the feed) is forced against or through the mem­brane un­der high pres­sure. The mem­brane sep­ar­ates the per­meate (wa­ter with a lower salt con­tent) from the con­cen­trate (re­sid­ual li­quid with a high salt con­tent). Through a multi-stage pro­cess, the wa­ter can be de­sal­in­ated to achieve ul­tra-pure qual­ity. The clas­sic mem­brane mod­ule is now de­signed as a wound spir­al mod­ule. These mod­ules must be re­placed after a cer­tain peri­od of use. This cre­ates a luc­rat­ive 'spare parts mar­ket', and wa­ter de­sal­in­a­tion us­ing RO is a massive, highly com­pet­it­ive eco­nom­ic sec­tor. However, the on­go­ing re­place­ment costs and en­ergy costs for the high-pres­sure pump make the pro­cess re­l­at­ively ex­pens­ive – but also very ef­fect­ive.

Tech­nic­al RO is used wherever there is a need to pro­duce purer, lower-sa­lin­ity pro­cess wa­ter, drink­ing wa­ter or ul­trapure wa­ter from ex­ist­ing salt­water sources. Sys­tems today range from mini-plants for do­mest­ic or labor­at­ory use, to skid-moun­ted solu­tions and mo­bile sta­tions housed in ship­ping con­tain­ers. Large plants with high de­sal­in­a­tion ca­pa­city are be­com­ing in­creas­ingly com­mon in areas where there is in­suf­fi­cient ground­wa­ter or fresh wa­ter. For in­stance, plants in the United Ar­ab Emir­ates and In­dia can sup­ply en­tire neigh­bour­hoods with fresh wa­ter. These plants are es­sen­tially huge factor­ies. In ar­id re­gions, the sub­stan­tial de­mand for elec­tric­al en­ergy can of­ten be met us­ing sol­ar power or ex­ist­ing nat­ur­al en­ergy sources, such as oil, gas, hy­dro power and wind power. A ma­jor prob­lem is the large quant­it­ies of con­cen­trate pro­duced as a by-product of de­sal­in­a­tion. This brine can­not be put to prac­tic­al use eco­nom­ic­ally as it is too ex­pens­ive com­pared to nat­ur­al salt de­pos­its. 

In the case of mega-plants in coastal re­gions, sea­wa­ter is drawn in from sev­er­al hun­dred metres off­shore and fed in­to the de­sal­in­a­tion plants. The con­cen­trate is then flushed back in­to the sea via a sep­ar­ate pipeline at a dif­fer­ent loc­a­tion. However, land-based plants of­ten res­ult in un­sightly piles of dried salt con­cen­trate, and the en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact of this has not yet been sat­is­fact­or­ily re­solved.

The RO pro­cess is just one stage in the de­sal­in­a­tion of sea­wa­ter to pro­duce drink­ing wa­ter. Oth­er pre-treat­ment stages in ad­di­tion to con­ven­tion­al sand fil­ters in­clude ion ex­change, co­agu­la­tion and floc­cu­la­tion, sed­i­ment­a­tion and dis­in­fec­tion. Nev­er­the­less, RO is a highly ef­fect­ive fil­tra­tion pro­cess, cap­able of re­mov­ing 90–99% of dis­solved solids, salts, pol­lut­ants and oth­er im­pur­it­ies. It can even suc­cess­fully fil­ter out mi­croor­gan­isms, bac­teria and vir­uses from the feed wa­ter.

A re­l­at­ively new ap­plic­a­tion of RO is the re­mov­al of PFAS (per- and poly­fluoroal­kyl sub­stances), which are com­monly known as 'forever chem­ic­als'. These prob­lem­at­ic sub­stances do not break down nat­ur­ally in the en­vir­on­ment, so they are gradu­ally ac­cu­mu­lat­ing in the world’s oceans and ground­wa­ter. They can be de­tec­ted in hu­mans and an­im­als, and long-term ex­pos­ure to high con­cen­tra­tions can pose a health risk. As these sub­stances are found al­most every­where in our tech­no­lo­gized world, a ban is in the pipeline, for ex­ample in the form of the EU's PFAS Reg­u­la­tion, and at a glob­al level. However, the prob­lem arises when there is no ad­equate sub­sti­tute for the source ma­ter­i­als (e.g. cer­tain high-per­form­ance poly­mers, such as PT­FE, which is used for the heat-res­ist­ant coat­ing in fry­ing pans). It is vi­tal to not only pre­vent the pres­ence of PFAS, but also to re­move ex­ist­ing PFAS from drink­ing wa­ter and wastewa­ter, to stop these sub­stances reach­ing con­sumers. Re­verse os­mos­is (RO) is suc­cess­fully used here as a com­bined pro­cess with up­stream ac­tiv­ated car­bon treat­ment or ion ex­changers.

The world is fa­cing wa­ter bank­ruptcy

Due to the ef­fects of cli­mate change, the world now con­sumes so much fresh wa­ter that it has entered an era of chron­ic wa­ter scarcity. Some re­gions are no longer able to re­cov­er from in­creas­ingly fre­quent wa­ter short­ages, which are be­com­ing more and more severe.

Around 4 bil­lion people – al­most half the world’s pop­u­la­tion – ex­per­i­ence severe wa­ter scarcity for at least one month a year and do not have ac­cess to enough wa­ter to meet their needs. Many more people are ex­per­i­en­cing the con­sequences of wa­ter scarcity, in­clud­ing dried-up reser­voirs, sink­ing cit­ies, crop fail­ures, wa­ter ra­tion­ing, and more fre­quent wild­fires and dust storms in ar­id re­gions (source: UN).

This un­der­scores the ne­ces­sity to ad­vance and en­hance the per­form­ance of wa­ter and wastewa­ter treat­ment pro­cesses. In ad­di­tion to the re­duc­tion of wa­ter loss due to dilap­id­ated in­fra­struc­ture, af­ford­able tech­nic­al de­sal­in­a­tion solu­tions – and thus the pro­duc­tion of clean wa­ter – are an im­port­ant step for­ward. Such sys­tems have long been proven ef­fect­ive, wheth­er as a source of drink­ing wa­ter on large ships, as mo­bile units in dis­aster and war zones, or some­times as the only source of wa­ter in re­mote re­gions of the world. There is a need for com­pact solu­tions and ro­bust, tried-and-tested tech­no­logy that can be eas­ily main­tained on site by loc­al staff. To this end, the op­er­a­tion­al tech­no­logy of such a sys­tem must be op­tim­ally co­ordin­ated.

The key op­er­at­ing factors in an RO plant are wa­ter qual­ity para­met­ers such as pH, elec­tric­al con­duct­iv­ity (sa­lin­ity), pres­sure, flow rate, and of course the level in the stor­age tanks. Chlor­ine or ozone meas­ure­ments may be ne­ces­sary for wa­ter dis­in­fec­tion, and the op­tic­al meas­ure­ment factor NTU (Neph­el­o­met­ric Tur­bid­ity Unit) is also re­quired for tur­bid­ity con­trol. RO sys­tems are built to meet wa­ter de­mand, ran­ging in size from small in­stall­a­tions to mega-factor­ies. This is why scal­able tech­no­logy that can be ad­ap­ted to the re­quired size is ideal. Not all meas­ure­ments are re­quired, nor are ad­di­tion­al spe­cial­ised meas­ure­ments al­ways ne­ces­sary. For the in­let of raw wa­ter, in­duct­ive elec­tro­lyt­ic con­duct­iv­ity meas­ure­ment is now the stand­ard. Thanks to the main­ten­ance-free meas­ure­ment prin­ciple, high read­ings and con­tam­in­a­tion are not a prob­lem, wheth­er the wa­ter is sea­wa­ter, brack­ish wa­ter or gen­er­al mains wa­ter. De­pend­ing on the source, read­ings of up to 100 mS/cm can be ex­pec­ted.

Fol­low­ing the ini­tial fil­tra­tion stages, the con­duct­iv­ity typ­ic­ally de­creases to between 1 and 2 mS/cm, de­pend­ing on the tech­no­logy used. The tar­get is to achieve a con­duct­iv­ity of between 200 and 500 µS/cm to en­sure good drink­ing wa­ter qual­ity. If even purer wa­ter is re­quired for tech­nic­al rins­ing pro­cesses or for use as phar­ma­ceut­ic­al-grade wa­ter, for ex­ample, fur­ther fil­tra­tion stages must be in­cor­por­ated. It is now pos­sible to pro­duce ul­trapure Wa­ter for In­jec­tion (WFI) from sea­wa­ter with a con­duct­iv­ity of 100 mS/cm, res­ult­ing in a fi­nal con­duct­iv­ity close to the in­trins­ic con­duct­iv­ity of wa­ter: ap­prox­im­ately 0.05 µS/cm at 25 °C. Be­low 1 mS/cm, there­fore, oth­er meas­ure­ment meth­ods are used, such as the clas­sic Kohlrausch cells for con­duct­ive con­duct­iv­ity meas­ure­ment.

The con­duct­iv­ity meas­ured in the series of con­nec­ted fil­tra­tion stages also serves as an in­dic­at­or of the op­er­a­tion­al status and ef­fi­ciency of the vari­ous fil­ter and RO mod­ules. Meas­ur­ing val­ues up­stream and down­stream of the in­di­vidu­al stages en­ables the per­form­ance of the fil­ters to be de­term­ined math­em­at­ic­ally us­ing a multi-chan­nel data log­ger such as the JUMO AQUIS touch, or a PLC (e.g. the JUMO var­iT­RON). 

Pres­sure and flow meas­ure­ments mon­it­or pump per­form­ance as well as the con­di­tion of the fil­ters. RO sys­tems op­er­ate at pres­sures of around 100 bar, so re­li­able meas­ure­ments are es­sen­tial to en­sure that the elec­tric­al en­ergy for the pumps is used op­tim­ally. In drink­ing wa­ter ap­plic­a­tions, devices us­ing mag­net­ic-in­duct­ive or ul­tra­son­ic meas­ure­ment meth­ods can be used.

For man­u­fac­tur­ers of such sys­tems, a one-stop part­ner is ideal. All meas­ure­ment and con­trol com­pon­ents are per­fectly co­ordin­ated, and all con­sultancy ser­vices are provided by a re­li­able project part­ner. JUMO is the ideal choice here, thanks to its many years of ex­pert­ise, its broad product port­fo­lio, and its glob­al pres­ence. In ad­di­tion to tra­di­tion­al products, ser­vices such as pre- and after-sales sup­port and en­gin­eer­ing ser­vices per­fectly com­ple­ment the of­fer­ing. The JUMO Cloud solu­tion is ideal for the re­mote mon­it­or­ing of de­cent­ral­ised wa­ter treat­ment plants. Re­mote con­trol, meas­ure­ment data log­ging, and re­mote alarms help to keep wa­ter qual­ity un­der con­stant sur­veil­lance and provide on-site op­er­at­ors with rap­id sup­port when needed.
 

ABB of­fers an IE6 Hy­per‑Ef­fi­ciency mo­tor cer­ti­fied to ATEX and IECEx re­quire­ments for use in haz­ard­ous areas. The new IE6 In­creased safety mo­tor, based on ABB’s mag­net- and rare earth- free syn­chron­ous re­luct­ance (Syn­RM) tech­no­logy, of­fers up to 60 per­cent lower en­ergy losses than the IE3 in­duc­tion mo­tors com­monly used in Zones 1 and 2. This en­ables op­er­at­ors to real­ize a ma­jor boost in en­ergy ef­fi­ciency and avoided car­bon emis­sions in in­dus­tries where gas, va­por or dust might be present, such as chem­ic­als, mar­ine, oil & gas, phar­ma­ceut­ic­als and food & bever­age.

Fast ROI

The IE6 Syn­RM In­creased safety mo­tor is cer­ti­fied for use with vari­able speed drives (VSDs) to of­fer ac­cur­ate con­trol and high ef­fi­ciency throughout the whole speed range, even at par­tial loads. This makes it the ideal up­grade for stand­ard IE3 in­duc­tion mo­tors in pumps, fans and com­pressors. Over a typ­ic­al 20-year ser­vice life, the en­ergy sav­ings from switch­ing just one mo­tor up to IE6 would be €87,520, res­ult­ing in an eight-month pay­back peri­od. The sav­ing cal­cu­la­tion is based on a 110 kW mo­tor op­er­at­ing 8,760 hours/year at 75 per­cent av­er­age load, with an as­sumed en­ergy cost of €0.20/kWh. Also emis­sions of 157,540 kg CO₂ are avoided —equi­val­ent to 37 gas­ol­ine powered pas­sen­ger cars driv­en for a year. 
“With the world’s first IE6 Hy­per‑Ef­fi­ciency Syn­RM mo­tor for haz­ard­ous areas, we now have the ideal solu­tion for cus­tom­ers who must drive down their op­er­at­ing ex­penses while meet­ing strin­gent sus­tain­ab­il­ity tar­gets,” said Stefan Floeck, Pres­id­ent IEC LV Mo­tors, ABB.

The new IE6 Syn­RM In­creased safety mo­tor cov­ers rat­ings from 110 kW, with IE5 ver­sions avail­able for up to 90 kW. 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 an In­creased safety Syn­RM mo­tor where a Flameproof mo­tor with a spe­cial en­clos­ure would be the tra­di­tion­al choice. Fur­ther­more, in Zone 2, the im­proved load­ab­il­ity of Syn­RM mo­tors en­ables more power from the same size as an equi­val­ent in­duc­tion mo­tor. This could en­able a smal­ler, lower-cost mo­tor to ful­fil the same duty.

ABB’s IE6 and IE5 Syn­RM tech­no­logy is part of the in­dustry’s broad­est port­fo­lio of IEC LV mo­tors for haz­ard­ous areas, with in­duc­tion al­tern­at­ives up to IE4 ef­fi­ciency level. Whatever the tech­no­logy, these mo­tors com­bine ro­bust con­struc­tion, high en­ergy ef­fi­ciency, and re­li­able op­er­a­tion to de­liv­er trus­ted per­form­ance and cer­ti­fied safety in the most de­mand­ing en­vir­on­ments. 
 

Wheth­er in sludge treat­ment, screw pumps, wa­ter screws, brush aer­at­ors, crush­ers, shred­ders or screen­ing sys­tems: Every move­ment re­quires the ap­pro­pri­ate drive solu­tion. NORD takes care of se­lec­tion, design and cal­cu­la­tion – im­ple­ment­ing cus­tom­is­able drive solu­tions con­sist­ing of gear units, mo­tors and fre­quency in­vert­ers. These are char­ac­ter­ised by their high re­li­ab­il­ity, even dur­ing 24/7 op­er­a­tion in harsh en­vir­on­ments. Fur­ther­more, they are par­tic­u­larly en­ergy-ef­fi­cient – even in ret­ro­fit­ting, thanks to the NORD ECO ser­vice. NORD also of­fers com­pact and low-main­ten­ance drive con­cepts. One ex­ample is the SAFOMI ad­apter with in­teg­rated oil ex­pan­sion volume, which re­duces the num­ber of wear parts to a min­im­um. With the II­oT solu­tion NORD DRIVE MON­IT­OR and con­di­tion mon­it­or­ing, sys­tem op­er­at­ors can al­ways keep an eye on their op­er­at­ing data.

A mod­u­lar sys­tem of­fer­ing nu­mer­ous solu­tions 

Thanks to its ex­tens­ive in­dustry ex­pert­ise and com­pre­hens­ive mod­u­lar product sys­tem, the man­u­fac­turer meets the di­verse re­quire­ments of the in­dustry. In ad­di­tion to high per­form­ance, ro­bust­ness, avail­ab­il­ity, re­li­ab­il­ity and dur­ab­il­ity, the drives’ en­ergy ef­fi­ciency also plays an im­port­ant role in en­vir­on­ment­al tech­no­logy. With its IE5+ syn­chron­ous mo­tors, NORD of­fers high ef­fi­ciency across the en­tire ad­just­ment range. This en­sures low en­ergy con­sump­tion even in the par­tial‑load range.

NORD drives also meet high mech­an­ic­al re­quire­ments in ex­treme en­vir­on­ments. The 3-stage right-angle gear units of the MAXXDRIVE® XC in­dus­tri­al gear unit series, for ex­ample, de­liv­er con­stant torques of up to 282,000 Nm in wa­ter screws. The NSD5 sur­face treat­ment and the in­nov­at­ive NORD seal­ing sys­tem provide pro­tec­tion against ex­tern­al in­flu­ences. 

NORD’s de­cent­ral­ised fre­quency in­vert­ers of­fer an­oth­er solu­tion for in­dustry-spe­cif­ic re­quire­ments. They save space in con­trol cab­in­ets, re­duce wir­ing and cabling ef­forts and sim­pli­fy main­ten­ance, thereby in­creas­ing the ef­fi­ciency of the en­tire drive sys­tem. Among oth­er ap­plic­a­tions, they are suit­able for use in pump drive sys­tems. With con­trol via fre­quency in­vert­er, dif­fer­ent pump char­ac­ter­ist­ics can be se­lec­ted through simple para­met­er ad­just­ments. The para­met­er sets are stored in the in­vert­er and en­able the pumps to be ad­ap­ted to dif­fer­ent me­dia, flow rates or pro­cess re­quire­ments. 
 

Busi­nesses are fa­cing chal­lenges due to in­tense com­pet­it­ive pres­sure and a short­age of skilled work­ers. Easy-to-use, speedy solu­tions are es­sen­tial for sur­viv­al in the mar­ket. Man­u­fac­tur­ers who can pack products with a min­im­um of com­mis­sion­ing ef­fort have a real ace up their sleeve when it comes to ac­cel­er­at­ing time to mar­ket.

Stand­ard­ised for sim­pli­city

The Light­line series from Ger­hard Schubert GmbH of­fers pre­con­figured ma­chines for spe­cif­ic product scen­ari­os, provid­ing an ex­tremely ef­fi­cient solu­tion for simple pack­aging tasks. The range in­cludes pick­er lines, flowpack­ers, car­toners and, most re­cently, case pack­ers for wrap-around and tray-and-hood ap­plic­a­tions.

All ma­chine mod­ules con­sist of TLM stand­ard as­sem­blies. This means cus­tom­ers can ex­pect the qual­ity they have come to know from Schubert, as well as ex­per­i­enced project plan­ning and fast im­ple­ment­a­tion at at­tract­ive in­vest­ment costs. The high de­gree of stand­ard­isa­tion doesn’t im­pact per­form­ance: A light­line car­toner for en­ergy bars, for ex­ample, can man­age up to 60 boxes or 480 products per minute with single-lane erec­tion of the box blanks.
 

Phoenix Contact is expanding its Ethernet-APL portfolio to include two managed switch versions with twelve ports for process automation. The new Ethernet-APL switches enable the two-wire Ethernet connection of devices and sensors in the Ex zones of process technology applications. This allows sensors and devices from the field level to be connected directly to the system’s Ethernet network. The data from the field level can be used in real time for process control, monitoring, and diagnostics.

Support of power class A

The devices feature optimized firmware user guidance for intuitive configuration, simple startup, and improved diagnostic functions. Their compact, lightweight design enables space-saving installation and in-line mounting in the control cabinet. With support for Ethernet-APL power class A, the switches provide an efficient power supply for field devices. In addition, both versions are approved worldwide and can therefore be used globally in applications for potentially explosive areas. The twelve-port switches help customers use Ethernet-APL in a wider range of greenfield applications – particularly in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, marine and offshore applications, oil and gas applications, mining, and biomass plants, including demanding Ex environments.
 

Ant­aira Tech­no­lo­gies an­nounced the INJ-0201X-bt-AC-95-T, an ul­tra-high power 10 Gig­abit Eth­er­net PoE in­ject­or pur­pose-built to elim­in­ate in­fra­struc­ture bot­tle­necks in power-hungry, high-band­width in­dus­tri­al net­works. Com­bin­ing 95W PoE++ de­liv­ery with full multi-gig cop­per sup­port up to 10GBase-T, the INJ-0201X-bt-AC-95-T en­ables single-cable de­ploy­ment of next-gen­er­a­tion ma­chine vis­ion cam­er­as, Wi-Fi 6E/7 ac­cess points, and in­tel­li­gent PTZ sur­veil­lance sys­tems—even in the harshest in­dus­tri­al en­vir­on­ments.

Most in­dus­tri­al fa­cil­it­ies, factor­ies, ware­houses, and build­ings have read­ily avail­able AC out­lets or wir­ing. With in­teg­rated AC in­put, the INJ-0201X-bt-AC-95-T elim­in­ates the re­quire­ment for a sep­ar­ate ex­tern­al DC power sup­ply, ad­apter, or con­vert­er, sim­pli­fy­ing in­stall­a­tion, re­du­cing com­pon­ents, and lower­ing costs. AC in­put al­lows plug-and-play setup where grid power is present, avoid­ing the need to source or main­tain spe­cif­ic DC voltages, such as 12V, 24V or 48V bat­ter­ies or sol­ar power.

En­gin­eered for Crit­ic­al Ap­plic­a­tions

The INJ-0201X-bt-AC-95-T de­liv­ers wire-speed 10Gbps through­put across dual RJ45 cop­per in­ter­faces while sim­ul­tan­eously provid­ing up to 95 watts of IEEE 802.3bt-com­pli­ant power. This unique com­bin­a­tion ad­dresses the es­cal­at­ing de­mands of in­dus­tri­al auto­ma­tion and se­cur­ity in­fra­struc­ture, where devices in­creas­ingly re­quire both ex­treme band­width for 4K/8K video streams and sub­stan­tial power for mo­tor­ized op­tics, IR il­lu­min­at­ors, and edge AI pro­cessing.

The INJ-0201X-bt-AC-95-T elim­in­ates costly com­prom­ises in PoE-struc­tures of either sac­ri­fi­cing band­width for ad­equate power or run­ning sep­ar­ate power cables, de­liv­er­ing 10-gig­abit speeds along­side 95 watts of re­li­able PoE++ power in a hardened pack­age rated for -40°C to 75°C op­er­a­tion and IP40-rated pro­tec­tion. The IEC C14 power in­put sock­et provides uni­ver­sal com­pat­ib­il­ity with stand­ard power in­fra­struc­ture, while dual mount­ing op­tions (DIN-rail and wall-mount) en­able rap­id de­ploy­ment in equip­ment cab­in­ets, out­door en­clos­ures, and space-con­strained in­stall­a­tions.

“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.