Versaperm has introduced a new dual or multi-chamber instrument to measure water vapour permeability to a few ppm or better.
Labs increasingly have to characterise and measure an increasing range of materials, compounds, laminates and components, in the search for new marketing and technical features, Versaperm says.
Water vapour can dramatically alter a material's performance - and it is estimated that it causes in the UK £100m in wastage each year.
Permeability affects the shelf life of pharmaceuticals and the physics of some specimens often seems counter-intuitive - for example tightening a seal can actually make it worse, and simple processes such as forming or bending can easily change permeability by 400+%.
Versaperm's new MK VI meter is highly automated and can cope with several samples at a time - and produce a permeability measurement in 30 minutes for some materials. It needs very little re-calibration and requires minimal training to give results that can be accurate to better than one part per million. Sensitivities for water vapour are typically 0.02 - 3,200g/m2/day for flat materials and 0.1-321mg/day for containers.