Why Moisture Matters

The single most measured parameter in production.

Moisture is the single most measured parameter in food, feed, pharmaceutical, chemical and coatings manufacturing. It determines yield — how much product per tonne of raw material — shelf life, texture, reactivity, and, critically, what proportion of the purchase price a customer is paying for water. Moisture labelling is a regulatory requirement across all food categories. The reference method, oven drying, takes 2–6 hours or overnight — far too slow for process control. By the time the result arrives, more out-of-specification product has already been made.

Key Capabilities

Built for the production floor as well as the laboratory.

Versus 2–6 hours, or overnight, by oven drying.

Handles solids, liquids, powders and slurries.

Significantly reduced drying times versus the previous generation.

Ready for common matrices out of the box.

For cake, feed, polymer and Total Suspended Solids.

Built to sit on the production floor, not only in the QC laboratory.

Sample Types & Applications

Wherever moisture or solids content decides yield or spec.

Grain and flour, dairy powders, processed foods, confectionery, snack foods.

Polymer intermediates, process chemicals.

Solids content governing cure, film build and shelf life.

Wood chips, pulp slurries, starches, black liquor, paper coatings.

Cake solids, TSS/VSS for process control and polymer dosing optimisation.

The Wastewater Application

Dewatering polymer is one of the largest chemical costs at a wastewater treatment works, and sludge transport is charged by weight — most of which is water. A 1% improvement in cake solids meaningfully reduces trucked tonnage. Real-time solids measurement (SMART 6 Wastewater, approximately 2 minutes) makes operational adjustments possible within the shift rather than the following morning.

The Green Drop argument. The Department of Water and Sanitation's Green Drop assessment programme scores wastewater treatment works on process control, monitoring and compliance. Rapid, defensible on-site solids measurement supports exactly the process-control capability those assessments examine.

Industries Served

Where the SMART 6 is put to work.

Related Products

Process-control instruments from the same range.

Fat analysis without calibration — the paired instrument in food and animal nutrition testing.

Direct protein measurement, the third instrument in food composition testing.

Get moisture results within the shift, not the next morning

Talk to us about matrix-specific methods and the SMART 6 Wastewater configuration.

Oven Drying (reference method)SMART 6
Time2–6 hours, often overnightAs little as 2 minutes
Result available forNext production run at the earliestThe current shift
Sample rangeMatrix-dependent0.1–99.9% moisture, solids, liquids, powders and slurries
Method flexibilityFixed time/temperature per matrixPre-programmed methods, plus a dedicated wastewater configuration
FAQs

Questions we are asked about the SMART 6.

Talk to our applications team about the SMART 6

Request a demonstration