CHAPTER 1. IMPORTANCE OF ANALYTICAL INSTRUMENTATION.

CONCEPTS TO REMEMBER
WHAT IS MEASUREMENT AND CONTROL? Measurement and control is the brain and nervous system of any modern plant. Measurement and control systems monitor and regulate processes that otherwise would be difficult to operate efficiently and safely while meeting the requirements for high quality and low cost. Process Measurement and Control (also known as Process Automation, Process Instrumentation and Control, or just Instrumentation) is needed in modern industrial processes for a business to remain profitable. It improves product quality, reduces plant emissions, minimizes human error, and reduces operating costs among many other benefits. The production quantities and requirements define the type of process required to make a certain product. In the process industries, two types are commonly used: continuous process and batch process. Often, a combination of the two processes exists in a typical plant. The continuous process consists of raw materials entering the process and following a number of operations emerge as a new product. The material throughout the process is in constant movement and each operation performs a specific function. The batch process consists of raw materials transformed into a new product according to a batch recipe and a sequence. The raw materials typically are fed into reactors or tanks where the reactions occur to produce a new product.

DEFINITIONS Automation: A system or method in which many or all of the processes of production, movement, and inspection of parts and materials are automatically performed or controlled by self-operating machinery, electronic devices, and so on. Instrument: Any of various devices for indicating or measuring conditions, performance, position, direction, and the like, or sometimes for controlling operations. Measurement: Extent, quantity, or size as determined by measuring. Some measurement and control technologies have evolved rapidly over the past few years, while others have almost disappeared. Instruments presently in use may become obsolete as newer and more efficient measurement techniques are introduced. The emergence of new techniques is driven by the ongoing need for better quality, by the increasing cost of materials, by continuous product changes, by tighter environmental
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requirements, by better accuracies, by improved plant performance, and by the evolution of the microprocessor-based devices. These technical developments have made possible the measurement of variables judged impossible to measure only a few decades ago. Process control has been developed because nowadays there is instrumentation that reliably closes control loops. In a typical process control closed loop, instrumentation closes the loop:

IMPORTANCE OF ANALYTICAL INSTRUMENTATION Particularly, analytical instrumentation allows knowing in detail what is happening in a process about its chemical properties, concentration or composition, which most of times are the product quality properties. Analysis is the most accurate indicator of this because the involved variables are critical and represent the activity of the process chemical components. For example: in the process of drinking water disinfection, it can be perfectly controlled the flow through filters and exchangers, temperature could be controlled and stable for a long time, reverse osmosis equipments could be working in safe conditions of pressure, but, if the Total Free Chlorine (TFC) analysis fails, the final product cannot be bottled because of the risk of contamination or incomplete disinfection which jeans that product quality failed and all the time, asset availability and money are wasted. These results in profit reduction lose of prestige for the manufacturer because the product is out of specifications and quality, and the most important: risk for peoples health. If an on-line TFC analysis would be implemented, disinfection would have been complete by adjust flows, temperatures and pressures automatically to make sure that all drinking water has been completely disinfected and therefore does not represent any risk for peoples health, keeping profitability, that its what plants are for. Traditionally, those measurements were made at the plants lab, so process had to wait until results are ready, taking time to make corrections and not exactly making process control of these variables, having big quantities of product out of specifications that represents lots of money. Analytical instrumentation makes those measurements continuously, in real time, directly in the process, where they are changing so they are controlled immediately and bringing enormous benefits.

CONCEPTS TO REMEMBER Matter: Is anything that has mass and occupies volume. Mass: Commonly refers to any of three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent: inertial mass, active gravitational mass and passive gravitational mass. In everyday usage, mass is often taken to mean weight, In the International System of Units (SI), mass is measured in kilograms (kg) Volume: Is how much three-dimensional space a substance (solid, liquid, gas, or plasma) or shape occupies or contains, often quantified numerically using the SI derived unit, the cubic meter (m3). Atom: The atom is a basic unit of matter. By definition, any two atoms with an identical number of protons in their nuclei belong to the same chemical element. It consists of a dense, central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons (except hydrogen, which is the only stable nuclide with no neutrons). Ion: An atom containing an equal number of protons and electrons is electrically neutral; otherwise it has a positive or negative charge and is an ion. Also a group of atoms electrically charged is called an ion. Molecule: A molecule is defined as an electrically neutral group of at least two atoms in a definite arrangement held together by very strong (covalent) chemical bonds. The molecular formula reflects the exact number of atoms that compose the molecule and so characterizes different molecules. However different isomers can have the same atomic composition while being different molecules. Element: Its a pure chemical substance consisting of one type of atom, which is the number of protons in its nucleus. Common examples of elements are iron, copper, silver, gold, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. In total, 118 elements have been observed as of March 2010, of which 94 occur naturally on Earth. Compound: A chemical compound is a pure substance consisting of two or more different chemical elements that can be separated into simpler substances by chemical reactions. Chemical compounds have a unique and defined chemical structure; they consist of a fixed ratio of atoms that are held together in a defined spatial arrangement by chemical bonds.
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Mixture: A mixture is when two or more different substances are mixed together but are not combined chemically. While there are no chemical changes to its constituents, the physical properties of a mixture, such as its melting point, may differ from those of the components. Some mixtures can be separated into their components by mechanical means. Mixtures are the product of a mechanical blending of substances like elements and compounds, without chemical bonding or other chemical change, so that each ingredient substance retains its own chemical properties and makeup. Mixtures can be either homogeneous or heterogeneous. A homogeneous mixture is a type of mixture in which the composition is uniform. A heterogeneous mixture is a type of mixture in which the composition can easily be identified, as there are two or more phases present. Solution: A solution is a homogeneous mixture composed of two or more substances. In such a mixture, a solute is dissolved in another substance, known as a solvent. Usually, the substance present in a greatest amount is considered the solvent. The solution that forms has the same physical state as the solvent Salts dissolve in polar solvents, forming positive and negative ions that are attracted to the negative and positive ends of the solvent molecule, respectively. A standard example is aqueous saltwater. Such solutions are called electrolytes. Complex solutions may have more than one solute and solvent. Atomic Weight: Atomic weight is a dimensionless physical quantity, the ratio of the average mass of atoms of an element. These standard atomic weights are reprinted in a wide variety of literature. Mole: The mole (symbol mol) is the SI base unit of amount of substance. For pure substances (that is, not being an admixture of different substances) the mole is defined as the amount of substance that contains as many "elementary entities" (e.g. atoms, molecules, ions, electrons) as there are atoms in 12 grams of carbon-12 (12C). Thus, by definition, one mole of pure 12C has a mass of exactly 12 g. The number of atoms or molecules contained in one mole of a pure substance is known as the Avogadro constant (or Avogadro's number). By convention it has dimension mol1, and its experimentally determined value is approximately 6.0221421023 mol1. So a mole of any pure substance has mass in grams exactly equal to that substance's molecular or atomic mass; e.g., 1 mol of calcium-40 is equal to 40 g. In other words, the numerical value of a substance's molecular or atomic mass in atomic mass units is the same as that of its molar mass (the mass of one mole of that substance) in grams 1 mole of atoms 1 mole of molecules 1 mole of ions 1 molecular weight (g) = 6.022142 x 1023 atoms. = 6.022142 x 1023 molecules. = 6.022142 x 1023 ions. = 1mol of atoms. = Avogadros number (6.02214 x 1023) atoms.