Measurement Technology

Enabling ultra-high barrier measurements

SEMPA LAB is constantly striving for new inventions and solutions for our customers. Our R&D activities and JDP’s (Joint Development Programs) with renowned national and international cooperation partners are also looking into advanced measurement technologies which are required for nowadays high end manufacturing processes. The main focus has been on transfer rates of permeates through barrier materials and certain sensing technology.

Next generation barrier measurements

HiBarSens® stands for ultra reliable measurement of permeation properties of barrier films. It is used for quality control of barrier film production processes as well as in research and development.
Due to its flexibility and yet simplicity, HiBarSens® is your perfect choice to determine sample and application specific barrier properties such as the water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) or the water vapor breakthrough behavior (Lag time) under very different measurement conditions. HiBarSens® is the first system which is able to measure up to 85 °C and so enabling the important WVTR damp heat measurement condition.
Furthermore HiBarSens® also offers the unique possibility to derive an oxygen transmission rate (OTR).

  • WVTR Measuring Principle

    HiBarSens® is based on the outstanding performance of a laser diode spectroscopic trace gas analysis.
    The optical measuring principle enables a reliable trace detec-tion of permeated water vapor through thin films down to the ppb range. The measurement is free of sensor drift or sensor hysteresis.
    HiBarSens® measures water vapor directly below the sample utilizing a rugged optical sensor. This opens up unique measu-rement concepts that allow flexible measurements of permea-tion properties with lowest WVTR detection limits.

  • Measurement Modes

    HiBarSens® features three measurement modes. Any of them fulfil the mandatory steady-state measurement condition.
    In addition to the conventional Carrier Gas Mode, which uses a carrier gas flow through the permeation cell, high performance modes can be easily applied, especially for ultra-high barrier films (<<10-4 g m-2 d-1).
    In Diffusion Mode, permeate transport is driven by diffusion only. In Combination Mode, a permeate accumulation phase alternates with a carrier gas phase.
     

     

Applications

Beyond mechanical protection, packaging material for
food and pharmaceuticals have another important function:
They have to protect the products against atmospheric
gases. Especially water vapor and oxygen are
critical to the long-term quality of these products.
Novel flexible optoelectronic devices such as OLED’s and
organic solar cells require barrier properties which are
in the range of (WVTR) ~ 10-6 g[H2O] m-2 d-1.
HiBarSens® is meeting the requirements from industry
and research to measure the dedicated permeation properties
(WVTR, breakthrough time) reliably.

Your Advantage

  • Highest flexibility for measurement parameters
    T: 10 – 85 °C | RH: 50 – 95 % RH, 100 % RH | atmospheric pressure
  • Unsurpassed limit of detection:  LOD ~ 10-6 g[H2O] m-2 d-1
  • Huge dynamic range:  WVTR: 10 – 10-6 g[H2O] m-2 d-1
  • Addresses various permeation properties such as WVTR, breakthrough time, side ingress behavior
  • Variable sample size from R2R large scale (Ø 195 mm) to R&D scale (Ø 4’’)
  • WVTR blank value is always close to 0 (ActiveSeal concept)
  • Easy to use, simple handling, no sample preparation
  • Significant measurement acceleration due to high temperature measurements
  • Optional external sample pre-conditioning
  • Extremely robust, long-term stable, low-maintenance optical sensor (laser absorption spectrometry)
  • OTR limit of detection:  10-3 cm3 m-2 d-1 bar-1
    Available in HiBarSens® EXPERT

  • HiBarSens®- Family of devices


    Permeation measurements are required in different industries as well as in research environment. Every application has different requirements to the testing equipment, like sensitivity, selectivity, permeate or measurement duration.
    The HiBarSens® family of measurement systems is designed to perfectly meet the needs of any application.
     

    HiBarSens® BASIC
         		HiBarSens® PROHiBarSens® EXPERT
    Derives WVTR down to >8x10-5 g m-2 d-1  and is targeting food packaging, pharma and basic flexible electronic applications. HiBarSens® BASIC offers Carrier Gas measurement mode and is able to measure at temperatures up to 50 °C with flexible relative humidity range between 0-90 % as well as 100 %.Ultra-barriers down to 10-6 g m-2 d-1 and beyond are required for high end flexible electronic applications and are investi-gated in research institutions globally. Using Diffusion and Combination advanced modes HiBarSens® PRO enables the user to precisely determine the world of ultra-barriers.
    On top of the BASIC functionality PRO also features high temperature measurements up to 85 °C, which leads to a drastic reduction of measurement duration and also offers the possibility to perform Damp-Heat (DH) Testing (85 °C and 85 % r.H.) of ultra-barriers for photovoltaic applications.

    Besides water vapor, oxygen is also a permeate of very high interest.
    HiBarSens® EXPERT offers for the first time the unique possibility to determine the permeation of water vapor (WVTR) and oxygen (OTR) very easily in only one device at the same time. This concept ensures the most comprehensive evaluation of the barrier properties of foils under absolutely identical measurement conditions.

     

     

    HiBarSens® BASIC

    		HiBarSens® PROHiBarSens® EXPERT

    Operating range
    WVTR  g m-2 d-1
    OTR  cm3 m-2 d-1 bar-1


    10 – 8 x 10-5
    -
     


    10 – 1 x 10-6
    -
     


    10 – 1 x 10-4  (10-6)*
    102 – 10-3 

    max. Temperature°C 
         		508550 (85)*
    Measurement Modes
    Carrier Gas 
    Combination
    Diffusion     		X
     
    X
    X
    X
    X
    X
    X


    HiBarSens® grows with your demand
    BASIC models can be easily upgraded if clients require higher sensitivity or the high temperature measurement option.
    * optional

  • HiBarSens® PreConCell

    Measuring ultra barriers within hours 

    The time consuming part of the WVTR measurement is to establish a stable water vapor concentration gradient within the barrier film sample. Precious equipment uptime is used meeting this important prerequisite.
    Sempa has a preconditioning concept which enables HiBarSens® users to establish the extremely time consuming gradient in a separate PreCon-Cell setup. This results in a significantly higher utilization of the HiBarSens® device. PreConCell enables measurements of ultra barriers within several hours rather than weeks.

SEMPA SYSTEMS GmbH
Grenzstraße 13
01109 Dresden
Germany

null +49 (0)351-888 10 33
null +49 (0) 351-888 10 15  
x development@hibarsens.com

null +49 (0)351-888 10 30
null +49 (0) 351-888 10 15  
x sales@hibarsens.com

Veröffentlichungen

Fachartikel HiBarSens 3.0 Plus  Magazin 11/2023

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