Bronkhorst® is proud to announce that from the beginning of 2016 the Dutch Accreditation Council RvA has approved the application to extend the scope of our ISO 17025 accredited calibration facilities.
The Bronkhorst Calibration Centre can now offer lower gas flow calibrations down to 0.15 mln/min. This is applicable for all its Thermal Mass Flow Meters & Controllers. The Calibration Centre can now also calibrate to ISO 17025 standards for the Pressure Meter and Controller instrument range called the El-PRESS.
The biggest and most important extension to the Calibration Centre is the addition of ISO 17025 calibration standards for liquids with our mini CORI-FLOW product series. The low flow rates we are able to calibrate are 1…200 g/h. Bronkhorst mini CORI-FLOW M12 and M13 Coriolis flow meters have been successfully used as the transfer standard between all laboratories. This means that the instruments are now available for National Metrology Institutes as a proven stable Transfer Standard for low flow liquid calibrations.
Bronkhorst has found that in all sectors of there is an increased requirement with a very high accuracy of ultra-low liquid flow rate and dosing instrumentation. One sector this is more prominent than others is the Pharmaceutical industry. As well as this, ISO17025 accredited calibration certificates are an absolute requirement for such industries to meet with the demanding requirements of auditing bodies and comply with the legal requirements of British Pharmacopeia. Historically the user was forced to always send their instrumentation off site to have accredited calibration. ISO 17025 standards for Liquids was not available at the Ultra-Low Flow Rates.
For the calibration of ultra-low liquid flow rate and dosing instrumentation, the highest precision is achieved using a primary, gravimetric technique, but there are a couple of problems with this. First, the gravimetric apparatus tends to be large and suitable only for fixed installation in an environmentally controlled calibration laboratory. Also, as the flow rates or doses become lower, a gravimetric technique becomes less attractive as the time of flight for each calibration point consumes more and more time. As a result the calibration becomes more expensive, and potentially less precise.
Part of this also success was because an inter-comparison report was organised in relation to the Metrology for Drug Delivery in 2014. Within MeDD various primary standards are developed for the calibration of infusion devices and flow meters. These standards, or calibration facilities, have been developed for liquid flow rates at ambient pressure and temperature. The flow rate range per standard varies somewhat; the combined flow rate range is between 1 nl/min up to 10 ml/min.
Goal of the inter-comparison is to validate the various standards by means of comparing the calibration result for a so-called transfer standard. This transfer standard (in this case a flow meter based on the Coriolis principle) is calibrated by all labs after which the calibration results are compared. Four labs of the MeDD consortium already participated in the inter-comparison, however now also VSL and Bronkhorst participated as a supplement of the main inter-comparison. These measurements show that the standards of VSL and Bronkhorst are consistent with the harmonized value earlier found.
Bronkhorst Coriolis technology can be considered an in-line transfer calibration standard for very low liquid flow rates, offering nearly instantaneous flow readings thereby making calibration of very low liquid flow rates very fast and therefore less expensive than when using a gravimetric primary standard. As it comes with ISO17025 accredited calibration certificates, it enables the possibility of bringing ISO17025 accredited or traceable calibration, out of the accredited calibration laboratory and into the user’s site. Lastly, the precision of the Coriolis technology means that the change from the laboratoryto on-site calibration is achieved with very little sacrifice of overall measurement precision.
ISO 17025 Calibration Centre Scope
Benefits:
Accredited gas flow calibrations in the following ranges (based on Air):
- – Volume flow: 0.7 ml/min up to 6,650 l/min
- – Mass flow: 0.7 mln/min up to 6,200 ln/min
Actual gas calibrations
Accuracy to the highest level across the world
Customer convenience: “one-stop service” for purchasing flow measuring instruments with
accredited calibration
Short delivery time
Cost effective service
Qualified staff with a “quality-first” approach and an eye for customers’ needs
Gas flow calibrations for other brands possible
On request Bronkhorst offers calibration training courses and workshops
http://www.bronkhorst.com/en/about_us/calibration_centre/
http://www.bronkhorst.com/files/downloads/certificates/iso170252005_certificate_en.pdf
http://www.drugmetrology.com/images/Publications/2014.07.30_MeDD_-_comparison_report.pdf
http://www.drugmetrology.com/images/2014.07.30_MeDD_-_comparison_supplement_report.pdf
For more information on the Bronkhorst Coriolis instrument range please contact us; Bronkhorst UK
Ltd, Email: sales@bronkhorst.co.uk T: 01223 833222
