News

Assessing a beer—whether as a finished product or at various points in the brewing process—is largely a matter of measuring visual and flavor-based cues. Does it taste right? What color is it? Is it clear? If it’s hazy, is the level of haze such that it signifies a production problem?

Haze is of key concern in beer brewing, as many mass-produced beers are known for their clarity and brightness.

The presence of haze is typical in many traditional beers, such as Hefeweizens and other wheat beers. In addition, hazy IPAs have become increasingly trendy in recent years.

But many brewers and macro-brewers produce bright, filtered beers that are sold in very large volumes throughout vast distribution areas. For these products, ensuring consistency and product recognizability is crucial to maximizing the visual impact of the product, as well as consumer satisfaction.

Measuring Beer Haze with a Turbidimeter — Beer brewing at the macro scale poses serious challenges in ensuring product consistency and quality, including the appropriate level (or lack) of beer haze.

One of the most common forms of haze is “chill haze.” This results from proteins and polyphenols (micronutrients found in vegetables, fruits, and cereals) bonding together to form large particles which reflect light and are thus visible. Chill haze gets its name from the fact that these particles dissolve when the temperature of the beer rises above 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 C).

As long as the particulates are soluble at warmer temperatures, chill haze does not pose a problem. However, if chill haze is left unremedied for long enough, or the particulates oxidize, they will form larger particles which are no longer soluble. The result is a beer which is permanently hazy.

More seriously, haze can be an early sign of an infected beer, compromising the taste of the product.

Visual aesthetics are not the only concern when it comes to haze. Haze can be a sign of a beer batch infected with Brettanomyces (wild yeast), Lactobacillus, Acetobacter aceti, or other unwanted organisms. While most forms of infection don’t pose a health concern, infection can still result in a product with significant off-taste.

For brewers that produce beer in extremely large quantities—or smaller brewers that wish to scale up their production—relying on visual inspection to evaluate beer haze is not feasible. This is especially true when brewing occurs in multiple locations, where the subjectivity of multiple brewmasters inevitably results in inconsistent product.

Turbidimeters offer an objective, automated means of measuring beer haze and ensuring consistency across multiple batches, or in beer produced in multiple locations.

While “haze” is the term most often used to describe the foggy quality of a beer, more generally the opacity of a fluid is defined in terms of “turbidity.”

Turbidity is the measure of the quantity of particles suspended in a fluid. As the number of particles in a fluid increase, they begin to scatter light passing through. This is interpreted by the eye as cloudiness or haziness.

In many day-to-day situations, we unconsciously evaluate the turbidity of fluids we interact with. The water that comes out of your tap typically has very low turbidity—it’s clear—and you don’t think twice about drinking it. But if you were to one day run the tap and found that you had a glassful of cloudy water, you likely be instinctively repulsed by it.

This is because we associate clarity (low turbidity) with purity, and a lack of clarity (high turbidity) with contamination. While turbid water may simply have high mineral content, turbidity can also be a sign of something more sinister, such as bacterial growth.

Haze and turbidity are most often controlled or removed from fluids—including beer—via filtration.

Old school homebrewers may crack an egg in their beer—the egg white is placed in the brew, and as it sinks the albumin acts as a mobile filter—or use some other another fining additive to remove haze from their beer. At a large scale, macro brewers pump beer through large filtration setups to get that desirable polished clarity before going on to storage and/or packaging for sale.

Large scale filtration often uses plate and frame equipment with a filter media. Diatomaceous earth is a classic type of filter media—often encountered in swimming pool equipment—although there are other materials, such as perlite. In more recent times, filtration cartridges have become more popular.

Plate and frame filters consist of vertical plates covered with a filter cloth. In between these plates are frames that alternately are hollow or contain filter media. Beer is pumped into the frames filled with filter media, where the solids that cause haze are trapped. Clear beer flows through the media and cloths into the hollow plates, and out through collection tubes.

But what happens if a cloth fails and allows unfiltered beer to flow through into the clear stream? This can be a costly problem, as the beer may be spoiled or require reprocessing to bring it to specification. Sight glasses on the clear outflowing liquid have traditionally been used to spot when the beer is no longer clear, but these require the constant attention of an operator to ensure all is going well. Furthermore, using a sight glass is a subjective measure. It’s easy to see when a gross failure in the filter has happened. But smaller problems can be easily missed until late in the process.

Turbidimeters offer an objective, quantifiable means of measuring turbidity in beer and other fluids.

Enter turbidimeters. A turbidimeter is essentially an electronic eyeball that stares continuously at the flowing stream and reports the amount of particulate it sees. The output from the turbidimeter is fed into the overall control system in operation and can trigger a warning or alarm when the particulate level surpasses a predetermined setpoint, alerting the operator to attend to the problem. Sophisticated systems will also stop the flow of beer or divert the flow back to its holding tank while the issue is taken care of.

Some care has to be taken when applying turbidimeters to a beer haze application. A turbidimeter must have enough sensitivity to see low levels or particulate in the beer while being stable in operation, resilient to optical fouling, and insensitive to color change. The ideal instrument is a 90° scatter device, for sensitivity, with an NIR light source for color independence, and a scatter to attenuation ratio measurement technique for window fouling tolerance. This approach will deliver readings that correlate well with offline methods. Forward scatter and backscatter instruments can also be used to measure beer haze, but will deliver results that differ from those of standard offline instruments.

In offshore oil and gas fields, deep water developments are producing high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) wells with standard operating conditions that are pushing 20,000 psi (1,378 bar) and 360°F (182°C). In addition, subsea systems are creating exceptionally long pipe runs from wells to gathering points. Some well heads can be as much as 60 miles (100 km) from the platform. High-pressure operation is essential to overcome friction losses within the pipelines.

HPHT wells require the continuous injection of chemicals to avoid production interruptions, but these chemicals are extremely costly.

HPHT wells, like their lower pressure counterparts, are highly susceptible to a wide variety of conditions that can affect production rates and equipment reliability. Such wells require the continuous injection of chemicals to prevent conditions such as hydrate formation, asphaltene/wax buildup, line corrosion, and scaling. Left unchecked, failures will occur, and these can be expensive in terms of both repair/resolution and lost production.

Chemical injection systems (skids) are commonly installed in production facilities in the oil and gas industry. They are used to deliver a customized cocktail of chemicals to prevent and mitigate a wide range of downhole problems that can negatively affect production flow from wells. Production chemicals are expensive and can account for up to 30% of the day-to-day running cost of a production platform. Metering is a vital component of chemical injection systems as it is important to monitor and deliver the right dosage at the lowest possible cost.

Metering for offshore chemical injection systems has traditionally been provided by mechanical gear meters because of high-pressure rating requirements. However, the tight mechanical tolerances within gear meters cause seizure when particulates are present in the flowing chemical stream, making them a highly maintenance-intensive item. Furthermore, internal wear over time creates measurement inaccuracy, even more so with low-viscosity materials, as they will easily pass through the meter where it is worn and not be properly registered.

Given the high cost of chemical usage, there are great advantages to be found with chemical injection system metering solutions that are low maintenance and have no moving parts to wear.

Rheonik meters are ideal for chemical injection applications and are trusted in high-pressure installations around the world.

Rheonik Coriolis mass flow meters offer the right balance between capital investment (CAPEX) and operating costs (OPEX). Key features of Rheonik flow meters include:

The only flow meters with pressure ratings up to 20,000 psi (1,378 bar)
Low flow capabilities down to 0.0004 lbs/min (2 g/min) with exceptional accuracy
Corrosion-resistant wetted material options (316L, SuperDuplex, Hastelloy)
Wide variety of process connections (including autoclave MP and hubs)
Resilient to pump pulsations
Low maintenance due to having no moving parts
Useable in hazardous areas
Supplied with build-in detailed diagnostic capabilities
Cost effective and space efficient

Rheonik meters can currently be found in such subsea applications as:

Production Chemical Injection

Using Rheonik Coriolis flow meters in high pressure production chemical injection systems helps guarantee flow assurance requirements are met in pipeline and process equipment, optimizing processes in production operations. Chemical injection systems deliver flow assurance chemicals into production wells to prevent wax, asphaltene and scale buildup, and to improve flow of oil from the well. In addition to flow assurance, production injection systems also deliver chemicals used to protect and prolong the lifetime of pipelines and associated equipment by reducing and removing undesirable substances that can create failure modes.

Rheonik flow meters are fitted to accurately measure the dosage rates of chemicals such as corrosion inhibitors, biocides, demulsifiers, drag reducing agents, and foam inhibitors.

Produced Water Treatment Chemical Injection

When extracted from the ground, crude oil and natural gas are accompanied by water. The water/oil and water/gas ratio seen from wells gradually increases over the life of the well. The implementation of modern secondary and tertiary recovery processes has also increased water content in recovered fluids.

Chemical injection systems provide a convenient solution for adding chemicals like biocides, antifoam agents, deoilers, demulsifiers, nitrate inhibitors, and (sodium) hypochlorites to treat produced water prior to reinjection into a reservoir. Rheonik flow meters are used in those systems to accurately monitor chemical addition rates on the high-pressure side of the injection pumps, saving wear and tear on what can be expensive and critical components in the system.

Hydrate Control

Gas hydrates are crystalline structures that can form during natural gas extraction. Hydrates attach to the internal surfaces of pipelines and inline equipment, reducing (and eventually blocking) the effective cross-sectional area in flow lines and gas handling equipment. Typical chemicals used to control hydrate formation are methanol, MEG and LDHI / KHI. High-pressure Rheonik meters are available to measure hydrate inhibitors from drip feed rates to full flow rates in 2” lines.

Contact South Fork Instruments today to learn how Rheonik’s high-pressure Coriolis flow meters can drastically reduce your HPHT well operating costs.

From the outside looking in, the Coriolis flow meter industry looks quite diverse, with seemingly dozens of players involved. However, a closer examination reveals that the industry is quite small, largely defined by the innovations of a couple of manufacturers. Other manufacturers ostensibly “choose a side” by emulating the established designs of those industry leaders.

We don’t hide the fact that we only develop measurement solutions based on Rheonik brand Coriolis meters. We hope that by providing some insight into the industry, we can better explain why we choose Rheonik over all others.

TOP 3 CORIOLIS MASS FLOW METER MANUFACTURERS BY MARKET SHARE

Micro Motion / Emerson

Emerson Electric is an enormous international conglomerate which seeks out large projects for which they can package together as many instruments produced by their stable of subsidiaries as possible, to complement their plant control systems.

Micro Motion, founded in the 1970s was one of the first manufacturers of Coriolis flow meters, and in fact invented and patented the bent-tube design which long defined the market. Micro Motion was acquired by Emerson, and at one time controlled 80% or more of the market. However, that share has been eroded over the past decade, as their meters rely on a design that is approaching 50 years in age, and has been since surpassed. Emerson/Micro Motion controls roughly 45% of the Coriolis flow meter market now.

Endress+Hauser (E+H)

Endress+Hauser is a Swiss-based instrumentation conglomerate. A couple decades ago, E+H developed a semi-bent tube design, and specifically sought to leverage this in the development of their Promass instruments. With this new design, they went after a chunk of Emerson’s market share, and were successful in these efforts. They are now the second largest Coriolis flow meter manufacturer in the world. Interestingly, several Micro Motion patents ran out recently and E+H almost immediately released new models that have a Micro Motion-style bent-tube design.

KROHNE

KROHNE is another conglomerate, based in Germany, which develops and supplies instrumentation solutions in a variety of industries. They have made a name for themselves in the Coriolis flow meter industry for their straight-tube designs. Their marketing efforts have made them probably the third-ranking player in the market. However, the design has some shortfalls due to the inherent nature of how the Coriolis effect works (in short, the use of curved tubes helps to magnify the measurement of tube distortion and obtain more accurate measurements, a benefit their straight-tube design lacks). But KROHNE’s meters are quite low in cost, and this has helped them subsume maybe 10% of the global market.

RHEONIK – WHAT MAKES THEM DIFFERENT THAN OTHER CORIOLIS METER MANUFACTURERS?

Rheonik is a standalone company that makes only Coriolis flow meters. Their products cover the full range of needs, from extremely low flow laboratory equipment to massive meters for industrial and petrochemical applications. Because of this specialization, they are also only company innovating new designs alongside investing in improving upon past designs. For instance, they have recently introduced new Coriolis flow meters that can operate in high pressure applications (up to 20,000psi). Past innovations have included high temperature operation and exotic materials of construction, along with great flexibility in process connection sizes and types for demanding niche applications.

In addition, the Rheonik isn’t constrained by the need to adhere to a corporate look and feel. This means that their meter designs can be user intuitive, and housings can be made to fit a specific purpose, rather than being adapted from housings used for other instruments “for cost reasons.”

As you can see in the above descriptions of the companies currently dominating the Coriolis flow meter industry, none of the ‘big names’ are specialists—they are conglomerates invested in many different industries and types of technology. Their mass flow meters are a part of a vast catalog of often unrelated products. The result has been industry-wide stagnation.

These companies can afford to barely squeak out a profit on their meters, but this doesn’t allow or drive them to invest in improving their underlying meter technology. This is evidenced by Siemens—they invested heavily in meter manufacturing, and ultimately sold that capability off when they couldn’t earn back their investment. Micro Motion’s stagnation—and subsequent loss of market share—is also a product of their parent company, Emerson, having to tighten the belt and not invest in their products.

The marketplace is being dominated by falling margins and products which exist to fill a place in a product catalog. With low-cost meters flowing in from China, we expect to see a lot of turmoil and consolidation in this space. Companies entering this market are lured by reports of rising adoption of Coriolis flow technology across all industries and while it is true that Coriolis meter sales is a growing sector, companies who come into the market with me-too products are just not making inroads against the established players. Those who innovate are able to establish themselves in markets where others are not present

Nobody can keep up with or duplicate Rheonik’s efforts, because they can’t afford to. Rheonik Coriolis flow meters are truly unique in terms of their quality and range of applications, and that is why South Fork Instruments relies solely on Rheonik for their mass flow measurement solutions.

But if you’re still curious as to what other companies are currently active in the Coriolis flow meter industry, below you can find brief descriptions of just about every other company in the world that manufactures or markets Coriolis meters.

SECONDARY & TERTIARY CORIOLIS METER MANUFACTURERS

ABB Group

ABB Group is a very large Swiss company operating in multiple fields, including electrical infrastructure, electrical motors and generators, robotics, and more. While their Coriolis flow meters are reasonably priced and known to work well enough, this represents a very small segment of their operations. Consequently, their support is lacking, and their sales network is in flux. Their current meter designs largely duplicate the efforts of Micro Motion and Endress+Hauser.

ALIA Group Inc.

Aliagroup is a 20-year old Indian firm which introduced their line of Coriolis meters around 2018. Initially, their products were copycats of Micro Motion designs, but they have rapidly improved their efforts and are considered perhaps one of the “better” Asian manufacturers of Coriolis meters at the moment. But the quality of their manufacture may be an issue, and support is often spotty at best with Asian manufacturers.

Badger Meter

Badger Meter is a manufacturer of a “me-too” Coriolis meter. Anecdotal information suggests that performance is so-so, but fortunately with a sales volume of near zero, there are very few companies saddled with their products. The company seems to be continually going through a significant amount of internal turmoil, and support for their meters is almost non-existent.

Brooks Instrument

Evidence of the rather intimate nature of this industry, Brooks Instrument is a spinout from Emerson’s Process Management subsidiary. Brooks manufactures the Quantim line of mass flow controllers and meters, which are only designed for very low flow applications. Their presence in the low-flow niche is why Micro Motion opted some years ago to not design low-flow meters in this range.

FMC Technologies Inc. / TechnipFMC

While the FMC Technologies name is still reasonably well known, in 2017 the company merged with Technip S.A., a French engineering company, forming TechnipFMC. FMC does not actually manufacture their own Coriolis meters, but instead rebrands meters manufactured by Endress+Hauser.

Graco

Graco—no relation to the Graco baby products company—is an American fluid-handling systems company that only produces a very limited range of small Coriolis flow meters. Their light investment in meter technology is due to their focus in paint solutions. The majority of their mass flow meters are incorporated into their own equipment.

KOBOLD Instruments

KOBOLD’s product line was previously developed and sold by Heinrichs Messtechnik, which KOBOLD bought out a few years ago. Before that, they did have a relationship with FCI but it’s not thought to have been very successful. Their meters are generally regarded to be at the bottom-end of the Coriolis product spectrum.

Malema

Malema exclusively produces laboratory-type Coriolis flow meters for the semiconductor and biopharmaceutical industries and they don’t play in the process market.

Omega Engineering

Omega is actually a catalog house which sells rebranded Coriolis flow meters made by other manufacturers under their own brand. There is often a fair amount of confusion about their products, as Rheonik prominently markets their ‘Omega tube design,’ and Omega Engineering uses the prefix ‘FMC-’ on their meter models, inviting confusion with FMC Technologies.

OVAL Corporation

OVAL is a Japanese company that manufacturers mechanical gear meters, as well as three models of Coriolis flow meters in varying sizes. While the company has been successful in Asia, they have little to no presence in the Western world. They have made some inroads into the development of high-pressure meters for hydrogen applications, specifically fuel cell car dispensing, but these high-pressure meters have not performed particularly well in the field.

Siemens Process Instrumentation

Despite the sheer enormity of the Siemens—they dwarf even Emerson—Siemens recently divested itself of its Coriolis manufacturing unit. The company invested millions into a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, but could not make inroads into the mass flow meter industry—which really speaks to how impacted the market is, an issue which we will touch upon later.

SmartMeasurement

SmartMeasurement is a Taiwanese company which manufactures knockoffs of Micro Motions’ Coriolis flow meters. While they make cursory attempts to sell their products in the US and Europe, they can only really be found in Asia.

TASI Group – TRICOR/KEM/AW Gear Meters

TASI Group is a consortium of companies involved in measurement, manufacturing, and a variety of other industries. In the American Coriolis flow meter space, the company markets their Tricor brand flow meters with limited success. Their products are of average quality, but there are some mechanical concerns with their designs—in particular how their meter mechanisms have a risk of internal leakage due to the use of pipe connectors inside. But the company has made some efforts at improving their products by acquiring the aforementioned Siemens line of meters.

Yokogawa Electric

Yokogawa is a Japanese electrical engineering company. Their involvement in Coriolis flow meter manufacturing is somewhat limited as their line of products primarily serves to complement their overall product ‘basket’ In support of their DCS control system.

INTERPHEX 2019 Efficiency Champion Award — South Fork Instruments manager John Daly, with award

At the 2019 International Pharmaceutical Expo—better known as INTERPHEX—South Fork Instruments was awarded with the Efficiency Champion Award for the Kemtrak SU UV Absorbance Cell System. The Efficiency Champion Award is bestowed on exhibitor products which demonstrate a significant reduction in time, energy consumption, and other forms of overhead versus existing solutions, and which offer enhanced scalability over other options.

Winning this award will forever be a special point of pride for South Fork Instruments manager John Daly and the rest of the South Fork team, especially in 2019, the 40^th year of INTERPHEX. We look forward to showcasing our latest innovations at future INTERPHEX events, and continuing to push the envelope in all the industries which we serve.

About INTERPHEX

Since 1979, INTERPHEX has been one of the world’s premier events for showcasing advanced in product development and manufacturing in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and medical device industries. Every year, more than 600 companies and 10,000 industry professionals from around the world attend INTERPHEX. In 2019, the 3-day event was held on April 2-4 at the Javits Center in New York City.