New, Automatic Viscometer for Polymer Testing

Cannon Instrument Company (USA) has introduced the miniPV automatic viscometer. The instrument design is based on Cannon’s successful miniAV™ with added functionality for the measurement of polymer solution viscosity. The powerful ViscproII software provides determination of relative viscosity based on very accurate flow time measurements made under conditions of exact temperature control. Reduced and inherent viscosity values can also be reported and the intrinsic viscosity can be determined by two single-point methods or the more rigorous Huggins-Kraemer analysis. The software also supports Mark-Houwink-Sakurada parameters and an optional branching factor for reporting polymer molecular weight.

Like the miniAV, the new miniPV delivers complete automation including tube filling, cleaning, and drying along with automatic flow time measurement and data logging into a standard database format. The Viscpro II software features provide flexible report formatting and versatile data export functionality. Dr. David Trowbridge, polymer scientist and applications engineer at Cannon Instrument Company, comments that “this new product has made accessible very accurate viscosity measurements with really none of the labor-intensive aspects that have traditionally been associated with these measurements.” The new miniPV is available with an optional integrated autosampler that allows an entire sequence of samples to be measured without an attending operator.

The minPV has a height of 62cm (24.5”) and a benchtop footprint of about 25cm (10”) square. The modular design also includes a control unit (35cm x 40 cm, 13.5” x 15.5”) and solvent station (8cm x 33 cm, 8” x 13”) which can be stacked to conserve work space.