The Benefits of Digital vs. Mercury Probes for Petrochemical Testing

The benefits of a digital probe over a mercury probe are obvious: increased repeatability, digital data formats ready to be processed, and most importantly: health and safety for both people and the environment.

HOWEVER: many testing methods still prescribe the use of a mercury thermometer. And because a mercury thermometer behaves different from a digital thermometer (lag time and stem emerging), it cannot be replaced by just any digital thermometer. Some methods, for example the ASTM D86 for distillation, allow for the use of a digital thermometer providing that the behaviour of a mercury thermometer is simulated.

ORBIS BV’s AirProbe is the innovative temperature thermometer to replace mercury for manual testing of distillation, cloud & pour point, cold filter plugging point, flash point, viscosity and other physical properties of petroleum products.

AirProbe’s Concept consists of 3 things: the free AirProbe mobile app, a PT-100 Probe (any size) and the AirProbe click-on device that holds the Probe.

For calibration; offset data are entered in the AirProbe app, sent wireless to the AirProbe device and stored automatically in the PT-100 Probe.

Along with the mercury simulation, data are corrected to barometric pressure from a built-in pressure sensor inside the AirProbe device.