Finding the cost and determine the specs of the best balance of LOD moisture for your application can be time-consuming, confusing, and frustrating. The instruments of LOD moisture contain more than 20 manufacturers. Most of them provide more than one model. The range of prices for these instruments is $1,000 to over $15,000, which makes the selections even more difficult. They do not publish many of these prices widely. The Sartorius balances are used widely all over the globe in different industries. You can check Sartorius balance price dscbalance.com before you purchase it.
It is essential to understand the cost between these LOD moisture instruments and the range of choice. So, we want to provide you a guide in this exploration.
We are going to mention some questions:
- Which key specifications we should consider?
- What are the aspects of important performance?
- How are these factors related to cost?
The Electronic Balance
An electronic balance is a common element in all LOD moisture analyzers. Its function is to perform the task of before and after drying weights measurement. It is the base of the LOD method.
In the data sheets and manufacturers’ brochures, the balance specifications are readily available. The significant specifications linked with:
- Balance Repeatability
- Balanced Capacity
- Balance Sensitivity
Repeatability and sensitivity are most important than the capacity.
Balance Capacity
As high as 200 grams to as low as 12 grams the weight ranges of moisture balance is vary.
The balance capacity is not a serious condition because the samples that are used by most loss on drying applications weights less than 10 grams.
Balance Sensitivity
The weight change in resolution or sensitivity can be easily detected because they are the smallest increment of a balance. By this process, we can define the accuracy of a LOD moisture measurement.
Three groups of moisture analyzers are identify on the base of balance sensitivity.
The sensitivity of balance in the first group is 0.01 grams. These are sometimes are on the low edge of the cost scale and referred to as two-place balances. Depending on the specific model, they usually provide the figures of moisture between 0.1% to 0.5%.
0.001 gram is the sensitivity of instruments in the next group. A three-place balance is used by these analyzers. Depending upon the repeatability of balance, 0.1% to 0.5% is the range of moisture readability of a three-place instrument. In this category, you can find the most significant percentage of LOD balance.
These moisture analyzers represent the highest cost category, which uses analytical balance with resolution/sensitivity of 0.0001 grams. In this group, the four-place instruments used which show the test result of .001% moisture accuracy.
Balance Repeatability
In the selection process, for your product, the determination of the level of needed precision is a starting point. The definition of the required balance of repeatability and sensitivity/resolution is involved in it. Under the balance repeatability and balanced resolution of the manufacturer’s specifications, this information can be found.
Both for moisture% and weight, the readability of the last digit of balance readout is affected by this specification. Usually, this characteristic started in milligrams or grams.
In this example, you can find the impact of the difference in repeatability:
When using a 5-gram test sample, you perform a test of two three-place balances. One model can give you repeatability of +/-.001 grams while the other one gives you the repeatability of +/-.005. The result of the moisture provided by one model is 0.04%, while the result produced by the other model is 0.2%. It is a significant difference in some applications.
