Capacitive sensors detect any changes in their electrostatic sensing field. This includes not only the target material itself, but also application-induced influences such as condensation, foam, or temporary or permanent material build-up. High viscosity fluids can cause extensive delays in accurate point-level detection or cause complete failure due to the inability of a capacitive sensor to compensate for the material adhering to the container walls. In cases of low conductive fluids such as water or deionized water and relatively thin container walls, the user might be able to compensate for these sources of failure. Potential material build-up or condensation can be compensated for by adjusting the sensitivity of the sensor, cleaning of the container, or employing additional mechanical measures.
However, this strategy works only if the fluid conductivity stays low and no other additional influencing factors like temperature, material buildup, or filming challenge the sensor. Cleaning fluids like sodium hydrochloride, hydrochloric acid, chemical reagents, and saline solutions are very conductive, which cause standard capacitive sensors to false trigger on even the thinnest films or adherence. The same applies for bodily fluids such as blood, or concentrated acids or alkaline.
Challenges of this type of application are not obvious. This is especially true when the sensors performed well in the initial design phase but fail in the field for no obvious reason. An example of this would be when the sensors on the equipment are setup with deionized water however, the final process requires some type of acid Difficult and time-consuming setup procedures and unstable applications requiring frequent readjustment are the primary reasons why capacitive level sensors have been historically avoided in certain applications.
Today, there are hybrid technologies employed in capacitive sensors for non-invasive level detection applications that would require little or no user adjustment after the initial setup process. They can detect any type conductive water based liquid through any non-metallic type of tank wall while automatically compensating for material build-up, condensation, and foam.
This hybrid sensing technology helps the sensors to distinguish effectively between true liquid levels and possible interferences caused by condensation, material build-up, or foaming fluids. While ignoring these interferences, the sensors still detect the relative change in capacitance caused by the media but use additional factors to evaluate the validity of the measurement taken before changing state. These sensors are fundamentally insensitive to any non-conductive material like plastic or glass, which allows them to be utilized in non-invasive level applications.
These capacitive sensors provide cost-effective, reliable point-level monitoring for a wide array of medical, biotechnology, life sciences, semiconductor processes, and other manufacturing processes and procedures. This technology brings considerable advantages to the area of liquid level detection, not only offering alternative machine designs, but also reduced assembly time for the machine builders. Machine designers now have the flexibility to non-invasively detect almost any type of liquid through plastic, glass tubes, or other non-metallic container walls, reducing mechanical adaption effort and fabrication costs.
Discrete indication tasks like fluid presence detection in reagent supply lines, reagent bottle level feedback, chemical levels, and waste container overfill prevention are now a distinct competence for capacitive sensors. Reagents and waste liquids are composed of different formulas depending on the application. The sensing technology has to be versatile enough to compensate automatically for changing environmental or media conditions within high tolerance limits. Applications that require precision and an extraordinary amount of reliability, such as blood presence detection in cardiovascular instruments or hemodialysis instruments, medical, pharmaceutical machine builders, equipment builders for semiconductor processes can rely now on these hybrid capacitive sensors
The post Do Your Capacitive Sensors Ignore Foam & Condensation for True Level Detection? appeared first on AUTOMATION INSIGHTS.