Properly Applying Flexible Heat Tape

Heat tape, with its flexibility, provides a good means of delivering heat to a wide range of process applications. It can be applied to pipes, vessels, or other objects that need to be heated for any number of reasons. The range of available product materials and watt densities assures that there is a heat tape configuration for almost every application. This video shows how to properly apply and install heat tape to get the best performance and maintain safe operating conditions.

Share your process heating requirements of all types with an industrial heating specialist, combining your process knowledge and experience with their product application expertise to develop effective solutions.

Expanded Tunable Diode Laser Parameter and Installation Range

The GPro 500 Series TDL Gas Analyzers
Courtesy Mettler Toledo

Inline continuous gas analysis is a necessary tool for effectively tracking emissions of many types. A tunable diode laser (TDL) can provide accurate continuous measurement of target gas concentration. With the proper installation configuration, the instruments exhibit no drift and are not subject to interference, offering a sustainable means of delivering needed process data.

Mettler Toledo, with the expansion of their GPro 500 Series of TDL instruments, now provides continuous gas concentration measurement solutions for carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, oxygen, moisture, hydrogen sulfide, and hydrogen chloride.

Varying application conditions can present specific challenges to an effective installation of a TDL, so the GPro 500 is available in variants that accommodate a range of installation conditions.

• The standard probe is a purged configuration for general use.
• A non-purged version is suitable for reactor of other vessel installation.
• Combustion process measurements are handled by the non-purged filter probe, with a sintered filter to prevent dust from entering the measurement cell.
• High particulate combustion processes can be served by the filtered probe provided with a blow-back port. It allows high pressure instrument air to clean the filter.
• A wafer version, for tight spaces and pipes, is also available.
• Two adaptions are also available for use with existing sample conditioning equipment.
• A retroflector adapter enables a cross-pipe measurement. It is designed to forgo the need for alignment, making installation simple.

Tunable diode laser gas analyzers provide an effective means of continuous gas concentration measurement for the process industries and combustion operations. Share your process and combustion gas analysis challenges with a product application specialist, combining your own valuable process knowledge and experience with their product application expertise to develop effective solutions.

Silicone Rubber Heating Blankets - Special Delivery for Industrial Heating Applications

Silicone Rubber Heating Blanket
One of countless shapes and sizes
Courtesy Briskheat

Electric heaters for industrial and commercial applications are available in an almost dizzying range of types, materials, and forms. One of those is the silicone rubber heater.

Stock shapes and sizes are available from many manufacturers, but one distinct advantage of silicone rubber heaters is their flexibility. The resistance heater wires are encased in a silicone rubber sheet, providing the ability to wrap the assembly around an object or manipulate it into a close fit with the target of a heating application. The silicone rubber encasement also provides a high level of protection for the heater wires from impact, moisture, and some chemicals.

The watt density of the heaters can be specified to provide a good match between the delivery of heat and the need for it. Custom shapes and configurations can be manufactured to order, and on board or remote controllers provided. Pressure sensitive adhesive is a common option that facilitates the installation of the heater assembly to a part or vessel.

The maximum application temperature is in the range of +450°F (+232°). These heaters are a useful selection option for a large range of operations demanding heat to be applied directly to a surface, object, tank, drum, or other vessel. Share your industrial heating requirements with product specialists for the best match up between heater technology and your application.

Humidity Measurement - Technical Details

Industrial humidity measurement instrument
Courtesy Vaisala

Regardless of what industry you may be operating within, humidity, the moisture content of the air surrounding your work, has some degree of impact. Though that impact may be small enough to currently be ignored, building a basic understanding of the relationship of moisture and dry air, how humidity is measured, and how it can impact your operations will make you a more effective and valuable operator of whatever your process might be.

Vaisala, a leader in humidity measurement, has produced a resource in the form of an eBook that breaks down into understandable units various aspects of humidity measurement and the impact of humidity on industrial applications. The eBook contains a basic level of detail, plus provides links to more technical in-depth source material.

Everyone should find something of value in the eBook. Share your humidity questions, concerns, and challenges with product application specialists for assistance and cooperation in developing effective solutions.

Humidity Measurement Handbook for Manufacturing from Alliance Technical Sales, Inc.

Alliance Technical Sales Adds Industrial Process Heating

Array of industrial heating products
Courtesy Briskheat

Alliance Technical Sales recently reached a new representation agreement with BriskHeat Corporation. The industrial heating products and systems manufactured by BriskHeat expand and complement the Alliance product and capabilities offering.

BriskHeat manufactures a broad line of heaters, insulators, and controls for almost every industrial application.

• Cloth Heating Jackets and Insulators
• Heating Tapes
• Heating Cable
• Laboratory Heaters and Equipment
• Etched Foil Heaters
• Silicone Rubber Heaters
• Drum Heaters
• Tote Tank / IBC Heaters
• Gas Cylinder Warmers
• Enclosure Heaters
• Hopper Heating Systems
• Personal Comfort Heating Solutions
• Hazardous-Area Heaters
• Plastic Bending Heaters
• Resistance Wire
• Temperature Controllers
• Temperature Controllers for Outdoor Use
• Insulators
• Heaters and Controls with Canadian Approvals
• Composite Curing Solutions

Share your industrial and process heating requirements with the product specialists at Alliance Technical Sales. Combining your process expertise with their product knowledge will produce effective solutions.

Software For Bioreactors and Batch Processing Pulls Everything Together in One Place

Bioreactors and other batch operations can require the integration and coordinated operation of multiple control loops, data collection and processing, and the equipment and instruments sourced from differing manufacturers. Operations such as these can benefit greatly from productivity improvement afforded by expert level software that automates and coordinates the tasks involved in batch processing.

ILS Automation, a leader and specialist in software and hardware targeted at the automation of batch processing, provides their Batch Expert+ software which allows operators to maximize productivity throughout the entire process. The company takes an open non-proprietary approach to providing solutions for complex batch processing. In the company's own words (from the ILS website) Batch Expert+ software offers:

• Adaptable: Customers can customize a system to meet their needs both now and in the future. Software features are often added to meet the ever-changing needs of process development or the introduction and integration of new measurement technology. 
• IoT Approach: We apply the notion of the Internet of Things (IoT) to laboratory automation. Our controllers integrate smart control elements and instruments in smart ways. Often this implies a digital interface to read and write actual numbers instead of an analog 4-20 mA approximation. Richer and more accurate/precise data is presented for data analysis and automation. Be it gas flow controllers (Alicat and Brooks), digital probes (Mettler ISM, Hamilton Visiferm), scales (Mettler, Sartorius, OHAUS, etc.), cell density (Hamilton Incyte, ABER, Fogale), the IoT approach provides smarter solutions.
• Open: ILS first-and-foremost provides solutions — not just a piece of equipment that is unpacked from a box. To achieve this goal, we don’t hide behind proprietary equipment or software that is rigid and would conform to our thoughts of what our customers need. Our platforms grow and scale to adapt to customer needs through an open software and hardware system based on industrial grade, off-the-shelf components.
• Remote Support: ILS often supports our customers through a remote VPN connection (LogMeIn, Citrix Receiver, etc.). Our customers claim that we have an obsession with bioreactor control and performance tuning. Combining our AFC controller with our BE+ platform, the slightest DO oscillation or anomaly spurs our interest. Through this interaction and customer feedback, we continually learn and improve our products and solutions. Also, we are often not on-site when questions and issues arise just before a 5:00 pm Friday inoculation, so any automation to help the end users is greatly appreciated.

There is more to learn about Batch Expert+ and how it can be incorporated into your own operations. Share your processing challenges with a product specialist, combining your process knowledge with their product application expertise to develop an effective solution.

Batch Expert+ Boosts Lab Productivity from Alliance Technical Sales, Inc.

New Sensor For Measuring Total Chlorine

Zirkon® DIS Total - Total chlorine process sensor

Courtesy Kuntze Instrument

The measurement of chlorine is a mainstay of many disinfection and drinking water treatment processes. Higher levels of accuracy in measurement of chlorine increase the surety of the disinfection process while limiting use of disinfection chemical products to only what is necessary.

Kuntze Instruments has developed and recently released a total chlorine sensor for use in disinfection processing and drinking water production. The Zirkon® DIS Total measures the level of chlorine compounds. Its open and potentiostatic design offers four primary operator benefits.

• Immunity to air bubbles
• Absence of delicate plastic membranes
• No exchange of electrolyte
• No membrane exchange

A data sheet is included below that provides more technical data for the  Zirkon® DIS Total sensor. The sensor is designed and configured in a manner that allows its usage with the full range of applicable instrumentation from the company. 

Share you process analytical and measurement challenges with experts in the application of instrumentation to process measurement. The combination of your process knowledge and their instrument application expertise will produce an effective solution.

Zirkon® DIS Total - Total chlorine process sensor from Alliance Technical Sales, Inc.