Following the introduction of a new version of the Pawkit AquaLab pocket instrument for measuring water activity (or ERH), Labcell believes it now offers the UK's widest range of water activity meters
Water activity (ERH) affects taste, odour, texture and shelf life of food products and is also important in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, detergents and numerous other industries.
Measuring water activity provides far more useful information than the simple measurement of water (or moisture) content.
Labcell offers several instruments for measuring water activity, all manufactured by Decagon Devices.
The AquaLab Series 3TEB is the top-of-the-range laboratory-grade instrument that delivers high-accuracy results extremely quickly.
User-friendly and easy to clean, the AquaLab Series 3TEB is suitable for use in both quality assurance and product development roles thanks to its +/-0.003aw accuracy and built-in temperature equilibration facility.
For less demanding applications where an accuracy of +/-0.01aw is sufficient, the compact AquaLab Lite is excellent for performing day-to-day measurements in quality assurance laboratories.
As with the AquaLab Series 3TEB, the AquaLab Lite is easy to use and clean, and it has a read time of just five minutes.
Where a portable instrument is required for spot checks by health inspectors, food scientists and quality control staff, the battery-powered AquaLab Pawkit portable water activity meter can be put in a pocket and taken anywhere within the supply chain.
The user simply places the Pawkit over the sample dish and presses the start button to take a measurement; lifting the Pawkit away afterwards removes the sample.
Despite its small size, the Pawkit is a highly capable instrument thanks to the use of dielectric humidity sensor technology.
Readings are obtained in just five minutes from samples of solid, liquid or powdered material, with an accuracy of +/-0.02aw and a resolution of 0.01aw.
If products need to be monitored during storage or transit, the SafeStorage Monitor can measure and store water activity and temperature data from up to five SafeStorage probes.
These probes are suitable for use in packaging, storage bins, silos, warehouses - or anywhere else where water activity and temperature need to be monitored continuously.
The DataTrac software supplied with the SafeStorage Monitor enables the data to be downloaded to a PC for further analysis or archiving.
