The other day, I woke up with a lingering quandary: Are the concepts of
Moisture Content and Water Activity the same thing?
As usual, I’ve decided to take on the task of clarifying the difference. I hope I pull it off.
From the perspective of someone who supplies instruments that measure moisture content, water activity has not been a primary consideration. However, I believe that comparison and contrast of these important concepts will be useful.
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Topics:
Moisture Sorption Isotherm,
Infrared Moisture,
Moisture Analysis,
Water Activity,
Moisture Testing,
bound water
As followers of these rants know, Fisher Scientific stopped offering its Tensiomat Tensiometer about a year ago. As a
tensiometer manufacturer, we at
CSC Scientific were very interestedin this and have tried to let the world know that we might be able to help with things such as replacement rings, trade-ins and the like.
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Topics:
Wilhelmy Plates,
Automatic Digital Tensiometer,
duNouy Rings,
Tensiometer,
Surface Tension Measurement,
Surface Tension,
Fisher Tensiomat,
Tensiomat Trade-In,
Liquid Properties,
Digital tensiometer,
automatic Tensiometer
“Why are my Moisture Test results inconsistent?”
That is an issue for many of you who test for moisture. We discussed the complexities and multiplicity of issues involved with moisture content determination in our “Loss-on Drying Moisture Analysis and other Moisture Mysteries” series.
In addition to intrinsic properties of test samples that may adversely affect moisture testing systems, automatic equipment parameter set-up, operator oversights and sample handling contribute to seemingly intractable moisture test result inaccuracies.
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Topics:
Moisture Analysis,
Moisture Testing,
Karl Fischer,
Loss-On-Drying,
Moisture
Within the catalog of questions we are asked is a category related to Calibrating duNouy Ring Tensiometers. The subject matter ranges from how, why and what is proven?
I guess the immediate and wise-assed answers are:
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Topics:
duNouy Rings,
Tensiometer,
Surface Tension Measurement,
Surface Tension,
Calibration,
Interfacial Tensiometer,
Fisher Tensiomat,
Liquid Properties
When People are first introduced to the Karl Fischer Moisture Determination Method, eyes glaze over and we can perceive a mental “Why did I ask?”
If you have any history with moisture analysis, you will have found, that for some applications, the Karl Fischer Titration Method is the best and sometimes the only way to get an accurate moisture measurement.
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Topics:
Moisture Analysis,
Karl Fischer,
Karl Fischer Titration,
karl fischer moisture,
karl fischer moisture determination,
karl fischer questions
The primary purpose of a sieve shaker is to provide motion to a sample in a test sieve.
An effective sieve shaker creates a motion that presents all the particles to all of the sieve openings and assists particles in passing through. This requires both rotary and vertical motion.
This process seems simple enough, but let's not be taken in.
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Topics:
Sieve Shakers,
Particle Size Analysis,
Sieve Testing,
Sieves
You may recall that I promised to offer my interpretation as to how Surface Tension is related to Viscosity.
To begin with, liquid surface tension and viscosity share a common trait: they both involve properties of fluids. After that, things start to get murky.
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Topics:
Wilhelmy Plates,
Viscosity,
duNouy Rings,
Tensiometer,
Surface Tension Measurement,
Surface Tension,
Interfacial Tensiometer,
Liquid Properties
My musings were interrupted this week with a pressing challenge. It was stated like this:
“My duNouy ring kept falling off the arm hook when attempting to immerse it into a high-viscosity sample.”
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Topics:
duNouy Rings,
Surface Tension Measurement,
Surface Tension,
Interfacial Tensiometer,
tensiometers,
Liquid Properties
When I tell people at cocktail parties that we specialize in Particle-Size Analysis. I usually get a polite response of ------ “OH !!,” which translates to “So who cares?”
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Topics:
Sonic Sifter,
Particle Size Analysis,
Sieves,
Sieving Process