Tag Archives: Moisture Content

Humidity, News, Water Activity

12 Slides explaining Water Activity; what it is and how to use it!

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Water activity is a useful parameter for many industries. Measuring water activity takes only a few minutes so can provide results quickly, ideal for critical control points.

However water activity is a qualitative measure therefore interpreting results can be complex. The following slides provide an overview to water activity and how to utilise Aw measurements.

For further information please do not hesitate to contact us or visit our webpage to download our latest AW White Paper!

Dr Jeremy Wingate
Rotronic UK

 

 

News, Process, Sensors, TechNotes

What is Dew Point Temperature

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Our state side colleagues have put together a great FAQ technical note explaining dew point temperature in more detail!

chilled mirror / dew point mirror
chilled mirror / dew point mirror

The FAQ technical note can be accessed here and answers the following key questions!

  1. What is dew point temperature?
  2. What is frost  point?
  3. When should I choose dew point as the parameter I measure?
  4. What are the pros and cons of measuring dew point versus relative humidity?
  5. Does dew point change as the ambient temperature changes?
  6. How does pressure affect dew point measurement?
  7. What are the common technologies for measuring dew point?
  8. Isn’t dew point temperature the same thing as wet bulb temperature?
  9. How do I know which technology is best for my application?
  10. Where can I buy a dew point instrument?

Rotronic produce precision low dew point sensors for low moisture applications in addition Rotronic UK is the UK distributor for world class MBW chilled mirrors, please contact us for additional information!

Dr Jeremy Wingate
Rotronic UK

Humidity, Sensors

Timber Drying

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We recently visited a company which is involved in the drying of wood, and learned a bit about wood drying. This company had bought a temperature and humidity logger for monitoring their drying environment.

Timber Drying in General

Wood is probably one of the oldest building materials on the planet. But before wood can be used as a construction material, whether it for structural support in a building or to manufacture furniture, it has to undergo treatment to gain the required properties defined by the application in which the wood is used. The first and most important treatment is the drying process.

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAA timber frame for a barn.

The fastest and most effective way to drying timber is in a Kiln. Kiln drying is done in a closed chamber in which air temperature, relative humidity and airflow can be controlled to dry timber to a specified moisture content. The temperature for the drying is usually between 40-90°C depending on type, size and the intended use of the timber. There are many different types of kilns such as vacuum systems, traditional heat and vent type kilns and radio frequency dryers. The cost of installing and maintaining a kiln may often be prohibitive unless a large amount of timber can be processed. However, if the value of specific species is high enough, it becomes more feasible to kiln dry green timber.

Drying_process2Wood in a drying kiln.

Some other drying options timber include: Solar drying where the green timber gets put into a glass house. This option is more often used for drying small amounts of timber. For bigger amounts the Air drying option tends to be used more often. Both drying options are only controllable to a very limited extend since they strongly depend on weather conditions.

Facts & figures:

One cubic metre of freshly felled oak contains approximately 540 litres of water.

Examples for air drying times:

Softwoods: 25mm thick Scots pine that is stacked in April can reach 20 % moisture content by July to August if the summer months are warm and dry.

Hardwoods: 25mm thick English oak if piled in early autumn can reach 20 % moisture content in about 10 months.

A 75mm thick log of wood can even take 3 years to reach equilibrium moisture content.

Why the need to measure humidity?

Controlling humidity during the timber drying process is essential for many factors. An incorrect level of % Equilibrium Relative humidity (ERH) in wood can have the following effects on product and process:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWhen damp, wood is easily damaged.

Dimensional changes

A controlled drying process prevents the timber from unacceptable shrinkage after the installation. But since wood is a natural hygroscopic product it will always change its size to a minor extend.

Strength

Drying the timber below a water contents of 25 % to 30 % will maximise the mechanical strength. dry wood is nearly twice as strong and twice as stiff as green wood.

stess_moisture_plotAs moisture content of wood decreases, the strength increases.

Decay

After drying, timber maintaining less than 20 % moisture content is unlikely to be attacked by wood decaying fungus.

Preservation

To increase the effectiveness of preservative treatments. Many preservatives should only be applied when the humidity of the timber has been reduced.

Corrosion

Drying timber prevents the corrosion of metal fixings such as  nails and screws.

rusty-fixingsWhen wood is wet, it may corrode metal fittings.

Weight

Dry wood is much lighter in weight than wet wood. For many species, dry wood is nearly half the weight of wet wood.

Philip Robinson                                                                                                           Rotronic Uk

Humidity, Process

Sugar Production and Relative Humidity

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The sugar market worldwide

Sugar is one of the most important raw materials traded on the worldwide markets.

Top 5 sugar producing companies

1. Suedzucker AG,

2. Cosan SA Industria & Comercio

3. British Sugar PLC

4. Tereos Internacional SA

5. Mitr Phol Sugar Corp.

In the 18th century only a few countries were producing sugar. However, these days over 100 nations process different base materials into sucrose. Remarkably India, China, Brazil & the European Union alone deliver 50% of the global demand.

Sugar Facts:

– Worldwide 170 million tons of raw sugar were produced in 2011/2012

– Brazil, India, China & EU are the most important sugar producing nations

– With an annual consumption of more than 24 million tons India, is the world’s largest market for raw sugar

Raw materials & processing

In temperate regions such as West, Central & Eastern Europe, the United States, China and Japan raw sugar is produced from sugar beet. However in the tropics and subtropics sugar is extracted from sugar cane.

800px-cut_sugarcane

Sugar cane & Sugar Beet

Processing

The processing of these two raw materials only differs in the first few steps. The main goal is to extract the juice, containing the sugar,  as efficiently as possible.

Extracting the sugar

Sugar cane is cut into small pieces during the harvest. It is then put through an industrial press to squeeze out the sweet sap.
Sugar beet has to be processed in extraction towers, where the plants release their sugar during a hot water treatment at 70°C.

Evaporation

After filtering the juice the water is extracted by passing through different stages of evaporators until only a thick syrup is left consisting of around 70% sugar.

Crystallisation

The syrup is then boiled until sugar crystals are formed. These crystals are then cleaned through centrifugation. To further improve purity this process is repeated twice.

Cooling & drying

Now the sugar has to be dried. One option is in large scale drum dryers at a temperature of 60°C. after drying, the sugar is cooled down on fluidized-bed coolers before heading to the warehouse or packed for shipping.

Trommel2_400_219_01

Inside a drum dryer.

Storage & logistics

Sugar belongs to the group of hygroscopic goods with an extremely low water content – below 1.5%. Basically sugar is a robust material but vulnerable to high humidity and temperature changes.
Generally it is recommended to store and transport sugar at a temperature of 20-25°C and 25-60% relative humidity.

By taking a closer look at the adsorption curve of sugar it is easy to see that over a long range of relative humidity the product quality is not affected. But as soon as the humidity level rises to 75% sugar starts to clump and above 80% relative humidity even dissolves .

Storage

Immediately after production the refined sugar is stored in humidity controlled sugar terminals or ventilated silos connected to dehumidifiers.

6.2.4. Sugar Terminal 5086

Sugar in a storage terminal

Logistics

Large quantities are trans-ported in silo trucks or train wagons. When sent by ship sugar is packed in double-walled bags made of natural fibre and plastic. If sealed like this, temperature is the crucial parameter which can affect the quality of the sugar. Due to big differences in temperature water vapour left inside the bags may cause clumping and even liquefaction.
The finer the sugar, the higher the risk of clumping.

Caking-dark-brown-sugar

Sugar clumping

Why the need to measure humidity?

As seen above, temperature and humidity measurements are crucial parameters in the sugar industry. Due to its hygroscopic behavior sugar can resist small changes in humidity, and slight temperature variations are not a major problem. But as soon as relative humidity rises above 80% or temperature changes significantly, the product can be destroyed as it clumps or even turns liquid.
During the process of evaporation, crystallisation, drying and cooling temperature and humidity play a huge role.

Philip Robinson                                                                                                        Rotronic UK

 

News, Water Activity

Water Activity and Moisture Content… What is the difference?

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Water Activity and Moisture Content are two very different parameters which are often confused and misused.

In a meeting today with a manufacturer of coffee capsules and pods, these differences were critical.

– Their  whole bean supplier provided each batch with  moisture content readings.

– However customers buying the coffee capsules and pods were asking for detailed water activity measurements for each batch. In addition for BRC Food Safety and shelf life validation of the final product, water activity was required.

Why are there these differences and can one measurement be used to determine both values?

Moisture content is probably the simplest value to understand.  It is simply the quantity of water contained in a material. Traditionally measured through loss of weight on drying. This method raises some issues, depending on the drying temperature you may not remove all water or may also remove other non water compounds.

More modern methods resolve these issues and use infra red absorption. This way the water content is directly measured, the method is non-destructive and far quicker. 

Moisture content is typically given as a percentage in terms of weight.

Infrared Moisture Measurement
Infrared Moisture Measurement – A measure of moisture content through IR adsorption

 

Water Activity (aW) is a measure of the free water in a sample, and ranges between 0…1.  Pure water would have an aW of 1.0. As water activity measures the ‘free’ or ‘active’ water in a sample it is more relevant to growth of organisms, chemical processes, enzyme activity and physical parameters like size and clumping as these are only effected by the water that can be chemically interacted with. Interestingly Water Activity is related to Moisture Content but it is product and temperature specific.

aW… is more relevant to growth of organisms, chemical processes, enzyme activity and physical parameters

Rotronic HygroLab
Rotronic HygroLab Water Activity Measurement – A measure of the ‘free’ water

What is free water? Water can be bound in materials in two broad ways.

1. Chemically Bound Water. Is bound so tightly that it cannot be utilised by bacteria, enzymes etc. It can be removed  through high temperature heating.

2. Free Water. Is bound through weak bonds, structural diffusion, capillary condensation and surface binding. It can be utilised by bacteria and can exchange with the environment, it is also removed through heating.

For instance a whole grape would have the same moisture content as two halves of the same grape. However the aW would be far lower in a whole grape as much of the water is bound inside the grape skin and only made free when the grape is cut in half!

Take a look at our Water Activity white paper or our Knowledge base for more information.

Introduction to Water Activity

Water Activity White Paper and Product Overview

Application note F004 – Water activity in the food industry