Optical Analyzer
watching the batch change in "living color"
Hardware: neat, simple
The optical analyzer is a fully portable system that can be installed in quickly at any tank. A fiber optic cable is inserted into a Teflon sleeve, supporting the optical probe against a site glass.
The analyzer electronics is in the box below the PC, at left. The system can run on a battery and be taken to any tank.
Seen on the table is an optical flow cell with a fiber optic probe inserted. This same cell/probe combination is seen attached to a recirculation pump at a tank, at right. As the batch flows through the cell, the probe, touching a site glass, noninvasively intereacts with the material - illuminating it and receiving the scattered light signal.
Software: On and Off is all your operator needs to know
The software is as quick and easy to use as the hardware. After initiating the icon on the screen, the operator clicks on the needed template to run the type of batch measurements specified by the supervisor.
The popup (seen in the middle of the figure) allows for specification of the tank or product.
The optical analyzer program then runs automatically.
At the conclusion, the operator hits Stop and the data is automatically uploaded to the Cloud.
Data: clear and rich for algorithms
Example of data you can expect to obtain with optical analyzers. Each of these curves, called spectra, is the basic optical information for the batch at the time of measurement and can loosely be considered a "color."
Lola applies algorithms to these spectra to measure changes in the batch all through the process and to compare to required standards.