Panels & Furniture Asia January/February 2021

PRODUCT HIGHLIGHT
Moisture measurement
reduces costs and
environmental impact
Moisture is a very significant factor
in many manufacturing industries.
Therefore, moisture measurement is
indispensable, with precision, reliability
and efficiency being the central cost
factors during the process.
Engineered wood, biofuels, seeds,
food and fodder – these and other
raw materials and substances have
one thing in common: Moisture that
can cause damage over a long period
or adversely affect their quality and
prevent them from being used or
further processed. For companies that
process these and similar raw materials,
moisture measurement is therefore a
fundamental work step. Not only does it
have a preventive function, but it is also
used to monitor drying processes.
In the industrial production process,
manual sample measurement is
frequently used to monitor belt, drum
or counterflow dryers.
The result is that drying processes
are often unnecessarily prolonged
or shortened over the durations that
are actually required. This lack of
efficiency is both a cost factor and
an environmental factor because
drying processes entail high energy
consumption. Conducting regular and
reliable moisture measurements during
drying can reduce drying times to just
the necessary duration.
Various physical measuring principles
are used to determine moisture in
materials. In industrial moisture
measurement, systems that use
microwaves to quantify water
molecules have proven successful. The
microwaves penetrate right through
the product to measure moisture
on both the surface and interior. A
single measurement takes only a few
milliseconds and is highly precise.
The two-parameter microwave
resonance method (2PMR), developed
in 2001 by Döscher and the Chair of
Microwave Engineering at the Christian-
Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, uses
a static electromagnetic field and
measures changes in the interaction
among water molecules. By detecting
the energy loss of the field as a reaction
to the alignment of the H 2 O molecules
and measuring the propagation speed
of the microwaves, it is possible
to determine the number of water
molecules and therefore the water
content precisely.
“Our customers achieve optimum
results in the coordination of
drying times by using dryers with
integrated moisture measurement
using two-parameter microwave
resonance methods”, explained Jörn
Döscher, chief executive officer of
Döscher Microwave Systems GmbH.
“Many suppliers and users of dryers
dispense with integrating continuous
measurement of the water content
in the production process for cost
reasons. However, measurement that
is permanent, accurate and stable over
a long period can reduce production
costs and thus justify the necessary
investment.”
Döscher Microwave Systems GmbH was
founded in 2014 by merging Döscher
& Döscher GmbH with AMS Advanced
Microwave Systems GmbH. Based in
Rellingen, Schleswig-Holstein, directly
bordering Hamburg, Döscher develops
and manufactures moisture, grammage
and density measurement systems, for
use in manufacturing industries and
as laboratory apparatus. The VenScan
and MoistureScan measuring systems
permit moisture control directly in the
product flow for various production
processes and therefore support
optimum process control. P
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