CSC Scientific Blog

The most popular was to measure include:

1. Drying the material and measure the weight loss 
2. Using a calibration and electronic instrument 
3. Using a titration method such as Karl Fischer

When using these processes, we take for granted that the results will be the product's actual moisture.

Read More

Topics: Evaporation, Moisture Oven Test, Infrared Moisture, Moisture Analysis, Moisture Testing, Karl Fischer Titration, Loss-On-Drying, evaporator oven

What seems like a million words ago, I began this journey explaining the simplest approach to measuring or determining moisture: Loss-on Drying. Little did I know how involved and esoteric it would become.

This voyage has taken me down mysterious paths through spooky theories, back to age-old chemistry concepts and into the vagaries of thermodynamics related to evaporation, vapor pressure, bound water and water activity. I have come full-circle; back to explaining Loss-on Drying -- a form of drying that I had assumed would be the simplest of all.

I thought the first four topics [evaporation, vapor pressure, bound moisture, water activity] were tough, complex, confounding and less-than-obvious. Drying -- defined as “the mass-transfer process of removing water (or other solute) by evaporation from a solid, semi solid or liquid” -- seemed easy.

As is often the case, reality makes “easy” a non-operative word. Such has turned out to be so with respect to the issue of drying.

Read More

Topics: Free Moisture, Moisture Sorption Isotherm, Moisture Oven Test, Moisture Analysis, Moisture Testing, Loss-On-Drying, Moisture

Moisture content is a critical factor to consider in the food industry. The amount of water in a product affects the product’s texture, shelf life, ease of processing, and cost to produce. Snack foods, baked goods, pet food, and dried goods are just a few examples of products that are vulnerable to moisture content issues like these. In many cases, an easy loss-on drying (LOD) test will allow you to monitor the moisture content of these products. (See the 3 Easy Steps to Run a LOD Test here.) 

 

Simple moisture analysis can be all it takes to improve the quality of your product. Let’s take a closer look at how moisture content affects each of these four product and production aspects.

Read More

Topics: Moisture Oven Test, Moisture Analysis, Moisture Testing, CSC Digital Moisture Balance, Loss-On-Drying, Moisture, fast moisture test, moisture balance, moisture content, moisture measurement