Quantification of moisture in bulk goods during production using a combination of direct and non-direct methods

The detection of moisture during goods receipt and production with online methods like infrared or microwave spectroscopy gains more popularity. Particularly for food, pharmaceutical, chemical and building material producing industry, the detection of moisture is a significant parameter of quality and reliability of the production process. Online-methods allow to measure high amounts of samples fast, continuous and non-destructive. Up to now their disadvantage is the high responsivity concerning changes in the samples, like color changes, variations in chemical composition and surface structure or other factors of influence concerning the accuracy of the measurements.

So the spectrometric methods need to be regularly calibrated by direct reference methods. In this case thermo-gravimetric methods using a cabinet dryer are well established. This leads to serious labour input which can only be reduced by turning down precision.

Main target of this network project is the innovative combination of thermal gravimetric with infrared and microwave spectroscopy to detect moisture in bulk goods using ultra fast quasi-online calibration methods for spectroscope based online systems. This is the only way to reach high precision accuracy without extraordinary operating expense.

Sponsorship:

BMBF-Network Project within the Loan Program "Innovations as a Key Feature Affecting Economics"

Co-operation partners:

Sartorius AG, Göttingen
Frank Optic Products GmbH, Berlin
Materialforschungs- und -prüfanstalt an der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (MFPA)
RHe Microsystems GmbH, Radeberg