Moisture Sensor Helps Keep Cereal Fresh on the Shelf
May 20, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Breakfast cereal is a staple for millions of us every day. The flavorful crunch when you chew cereal is dependent upon moisture in the grains when processed, and in the final cereal when packaged. Installation of a moisture sensor on the processed grain and the final product cereal prior to packaging greatly improves Quality Control. The most important raw material in any breakfast cereal is grain. The grains most commonly used are corn, wheat, oats, rice, and barley. Some hot cereals, such as plain oatmeal, and a few cold cereals, such as plain shredded wheat, contain no other ingredients. Most breakfast cereals contain other ingredients, such as salt, yeast, sweeteners, flavoring agents, coloring agents, vitamins, minerals, and preservatives.
The sweeteners used in breakfast cereals include malt (obtained from barley), white sugar, brown sugar, and corn syrup. Some natural cereals are sweetened with concentrated fruit juice. A wide variety of flavors may be added to breakfast cereals, including chocolate, cinnamon and other spices, and fruit flavors. Other ingredients added to improve flavor include nuts, dried fruit, and marshmallows.
Vitamins and minerals are often added to breakfast cereals to replace those lost during cooking. The most important of these is vitamin B-i, 90 % of which is destroyed by heat. The antioxidants BHA and BHT are the preservatives most often added to breakfast cereals to prevent them from becoming stale and rancid.
A moisture sensor provides a large digital display of content for the operator, analog outputs for control, and a digital link for data archiving. The MCT330 HD and the MCT360 are the most common moisture sensor operated in cereal production.
Cereal Production Benefits From Moisture Sensor
Moisture Gauges Provide Digital Display, Analog Outputs and Digital Interface
May 20, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Moisture gauges provide immediate moisture measurement in a wide variety of Near Infrared (NIR) applications including food, paper, chemical, tobacco, mining and other applications. Process Sensors Website features many of these applications for your review. The MCT360 Moisture Gauges are operated throughout the world for moisture measurement and control. The MCT330 SF moisture gauges are designed for high temperature and wash down environments.
Moisture gauges supply proportional analog outputs including 4-20 mA and 0-10V. It also features a digital output for data archiving and communication. Please contact Process Sensors today to discuss your application at 508.473-9901.
Moisture Gauge Displays Moisture and Oil Measurements in Potato Stix
MCT330 SF Moisture Gauge Measures Moisture and Oil Content
NIR Moisture Analyzers Provide Immediate Measurement On-Line, At-Line, and In-Line
May 20, 2013 By Leave a Comment
The classic laboratory method of measuring moisture in solid or semi-solid materials is loss on drying (LOD). In this technique a sample of material is weighed, heated in an oven for an appropriate period, cooled in the dry atmosphere of a desiccator, and then reweighed. If the volatile content of the solid is primarily water, the LOD technique gives a good measure of moisture content. Karl Fisher and other methods may also be used for more complicated sample matrices. While these methods are accurate, they can be tedious and slow when operating a process line.
Process Sensors offers the MCT360 NIR moisture analyzers for process applications and the MCT660 Bench Top for at-line and laboratory applications. Please contact us today to discuss Near Infrared moisture analyzers at 508.473-9901.
Process Moisture Sensors Reduce Energy Costs and Increase Productivity at Dryer Exit
May 20, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Moisture sensors can be employed in feedback or feed forward control schemes to optimize dryer operation. Process Sensors offers both the MCT360 Near Infrared (NIR) transmitter and the RFM-1000 Radio Frequency transmitter to meet your needs.
Feedback control is generally employed when the dryer inlet incoming raw material moisture is relatively uniform. Feed forward control is employed when the inlet material has a wide variance in moisture due to either the product nature or batch variances. Moisture Sensors improve dryer operation.
Please contact Process Sensors to discuss your application at 508.473-9901.
Feed Back Moisture Control
Feed Forward Moisture Control at Dryer Exit
PSTC (Pressure Sensitive Tape Council) Tape Summit 2013 May 13-17 New Orleans
May 6, 2013 By Leave a Comment
PSTC’s Tape Summit 2013 gives professionals unprecedented opportunities to build their pressure sensitive adhesive (PSA) tape knowledge. This industry-focused event provides segmented and flexible learning options to help you formulate the most effective educational experience possible.
Tape Summit 2013
May 13-17
Sheraton New Orleans Hotel
New Orleans, LA
Click here for hotel information.
Process Sensors will be presenting a paper on Controlling Steam Re-moisturizers to Reduce Edge Curl on Thursday, May 16th at 11 a.m. We will also present our NIR transmitter and Guardian Cross Direction Web Profile System at Booth #46 during the exhibit portion of the Tape Summit. Please come visit us!
PSTC Tape Summit New Orleans
Hot Melt Measurement with Near Infrared (NIR) Transmitter
May 6, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Hot Melt Measurement Transmitter
Hot Melt Measurements are typically measured with Near Infrared (NIR) transmitters that provide a digital display in engineering units, analog outputs and a digital interface. The NIR non-contacting Hot Melt measurement is extremely accurate and stable with no regulatory requirements. The measurement can be fixed point or scan across the web to provide a cross direction web profile.
Click Here for MCT360 Fixed Point Hot Melt Transmitter
Click Here for Guardian Cross Direction Web Profile System Brochure
Paraffin Wax is largely accepted as the first hot melt coating application. Polymer and copolymer resins brought a host of formulations for improved performance properties that continue to expand the horizons of Hot Melt applications. Typical Hot Melt chemistry is designed to provide strength and flexibility, tackiness for bonding and speed of set in relatively even proportions.
Hot Melt Composition Contributions
Roll Coaters, Die Coaters, extruders, and doctor blade configurations are among the methods of applying hot melt adhesive. Roll coaters offer more flexibility than die application methods as they change over more quickly and allow for stripe coating. Die Coaters offer more precision across the web, especially in the 15 to 20 GSM. Hot melt applications of 100 GSM are very common and therange can go from 0-400 GSM.
Melt coating dies vary from 100mm to 3m, depending on the application. The greater the number of dies, the greater the control across the substrate web to achieve set point. When dies malfunction or get contaminated, they need to be detected, maintained or replaced.
The Guardian CD Web Profile System provides a Cross Direction web profile on a 19” flat panel LCD in an economical and attractive enclosure. The Guardian is fully automated with recipes for web width, scan speed, zone average, and data logging digital outputs. This is a complete system to provide the highest value performance to cost ratio. The system can supply CD Web Profiles and MD Trends for hot melt thickness, moisture and temperature. Multiple measurements can be mounted on a single screen.
Multiple Profiles on Single Display
