Surface Measurement Systems

The latest addition to the DVS family, DVS Carbon, is the first purpose-built gravimetric sorption analyzer for advanced carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) applications. In most gas phase carbon capture applications, CO₂ often competes with other chemical species at adsorbent sites, including water vapor. The new DVS Carbon enables the measurement of CO₂ uptake in real life conditions, controlling both temperature and humidity at a broad range of CO₂ concentrations.

With the patented Surface Measurement Systems Ultrabalance measuring real-time mass changes caused by sorption and desorption in the sample, complex carbon capture conditions can be assessed in a range of materials. In addition, the system can be configured to enable a range of different capabilities.

Offering the highest throughput of our entire DVS range, the DVS Endeavour precisely controls and measures temperature and relative humidity while simultaneously recording the highest resolution changes in mass on up to 5 samples simultaneously.

Combined with a range of modular accessories, the DVS Endeavour is one of the most versatile DVS instruments on the market.

The iGC-SEA continues Surface Measurement Systems’ pioneering history with inverse gas chromatography (iGC), which now spans more than fifteen years.

The iGC-SEA is a second generation iGC instrument. It is the world’s only commercial instrument based on the iGC principle. The unique SMS injection scheme provides a wide range of injection concentrations with unrivalled accuracy and reproducibility.

How Does the iGC-SEA Work?

The iGC-SEA is based on Inverse Gas Chromatography (iGC) methodology and is a gas phase technique for characterising surface and bulk properties of solid materials. The principles of IGC are very simple, being the reverse of a conventional gas chromatographic (GC) experiment.A cylindrical column is uniformly packed with the solid material of interest, typically a powder, fibre or film. A pulse of constant concentration of gas is then injected down the column at a fixed carrier gas flow rate, and the time taken for the pulse or concentration front to elute down the column is measured by a detector. A series of iGC measurements with different gas phase probe molecules then allows access to a wide range of phyisco-chemical properties of the solid sample.

The injected gas molecules passing over the material adsorb on the surface with a partition coefficient KS:

Ks = Vn / Ws

Where VN is the net retention volume – the volume of carrier gas required to elute the injection through the column, and WS is the mass of the sample. VN is a measure of how strongly the probe gas interacts with the solid sample and is the fundamental data obtained from an IGC experiment; from it a wide range of surface and bulk properties can be calculated.