Air Flow Controller for indoor air analysis device

Our Bronkhorst office in France supported a customer with air flow controllers which played a crucial role in their mobile pollutant analysers used for on-site monitoring of air quality. The air analysers are used for detection of small amounts of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene – BTEX analysis – and volatile organic compounds analysis - VOC analysis - in indoor air.

Process solution

The air quality measurement method consists of a gas-into-liquid take up step in a microfluidic cell combined with a chemical reaction, followed by a detection step using spectroscopy of fluorescence. Here the Bronkhorst chip-sensor based mass flow controllers for gases (series IQ⁺FLOW) - play a key role. Especially in the customer's equipment for volatile organic compounds (VOC) analysis, the low differential pressure version of this mass flow controller is used.

The compact IQ⁺FLOW air flow controllers allow for the accurate handling of very small gas flows, so that very small quantities of liquid reagents in the microfluidic cell will be necessary, saving on chemicals' consumption allowing low running cost. These small (gas and liquid) mass flows also facilitate the short response time of the analysers, which could be down to the second range. All these features are eminent for compact devices.