Cracking monitor boosts electronic tube production
15 Jan 2000
An ammonia monitoring system developed by Bromborough-based CBISS is helping to improve the production of electronic tubes at the Chelmsford factory of EEV.
The tubes are for high energy (up to 2MW) applications, thermal imaging systems and LCD signboard systems. Part of their production involves metallurgical processes such as plating copper on to a ceramic substrate, an operation which has to be done in a reducing atmosphere.
According to EEV plant services engineer David Knights, 'production of the hydrogen and nitrogen used in the plating furnaces to give the right atmosphere is most economically achieved on a large scale by cracking ammonia. However, any residual ammonia remaining in the gases fed to the furnaces degrades product quality. As part of a continuous quality improvement programme, we needed to measure the residual ammonia at levels less than 10ppm. Until recently there has been no system capable of providing an on-line absolute measurement of ammonia at these levels.'
The CBISS system measures ammonia in the gas streams supplied from 16 individual cracking units. It combines CBISS's own multichannel gas sampling system with an Innova 1302 gas monitor under PC control.
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