Level measurement of purified water

A leader in the world of health, this company manufactures products for the treatment and care of patients in health facilities and at home.

The company also develops, manufactures and markets pharmaceutical products and medical devices. The range of products includes generic parenteral medication, solutes and clinical nutrition products as well as the medical devices necessary to administer them. The company also manufactures bags of glucose in which purified water is used.

Purified water is the main component required in the production range of this large pharmaceutical group. It is produced ahead of time on-site from untreated water and transported to a storage tank.

All of the production lines are supplied by this water tank. The supply of purified water in the tank must be regular or it is liable to interrupt the process. In this main tank, the level of purified water must be continuously measured.

For hygienic reasons the water is kept permanently at 90 °C / 194 °F. Given the importance of this measuring point, the customer was looking for a reliable alternative to the existing measuring solution.

Already a user of the KROHNE BM70 with wave-stick antenna, the customer wanted to modernize the installation (equipment installed back in the nineties is now obsolete). We recommended the OPTIWAVE 5200 FMCW radar level transmitter.

Thanks to an adapter kit, it is possible to move from the BM 70 converter to the OPTIWAVE 5200 without disconnecting from the tank. The adapter kit also made it possible to install the OPTIWAVE 5200 on the hygienic connection of the wave-stick antenna.

The customer was able to keep the wave-stick antenna, typically adapted for use in humid environments. The production of hygienic water is a slow process. Thanks to the KROHNE solution, the customer did not have to empty the tank and lose part of its production.

The customer found the OPTIWAVE 5200 to be an extremely simple solution to implement, both in terms of the physical installation and when it came to programming.

The FMCW technology of the OPTIWAVE 5200 allows it to maintain accurate and reliable measurements, regardless of the operating conditions. The special features of this storage tank are a rapid filling of steam and condensation and a flow path input close to the radar.