Abstract
The in-line monitoring of liquid properties, such as density and viscosity, is a key process in many industrial areas such as agro-food, automotive or biotechnology, requiring real-time automation, low-cost and miniaturization, while maintaining a level of accuracy and resolution comparable to benchtop instruments. In this paper, 3D-printed cuboid-shaped liquid cells featuring a rectangular vibrating plate in one of the sides, actuated by PZT piezoelectric layers, were designed, fabricated and tested. The device was resonantly excited in the 3rd-order roof tile-shaped vibration mode of the plate and validated as a density-viscosity sensor. Furthermore, conditioning circuits were designed to adapt the impedance of the resonator and to cancel parasitic effects. This allowed us to implement a phase-locked loop-based oscillator circuit whose oscillation frequency and voltage amplitude could be calibrated against density and viscosity of the liquid flowing through the cell. To demonstrate the performance, the sensor was calibrated with a set of artificial model solutions of grape must, representing stages of a wine fermentation process. Our results demonstrate the high potential of the low-cost sensor to detect the decrease in sugar and the increase in ethanol concentrations during a grape must fermentation, with a resolution of 10 µg/mL and 3 µPa·s as upper limits for the density and viscosity, respectively.
Highlights
The measurement of different physical and chemical parameters is essential in the engineering field
Once designed cellcell resonator waswas fabricated andand characterized, we focused on theon
Oncethe the designed resonator fabricated characterized, we focused final as a density-viscosity sensor, and the results obtained aqueousin solutions
Summary
The measurement of different physical and chemical parameters is essential in the engineering field. In this regard, different types of sensors have been fabricated. Strain sensors [9], pressure sensors [10], tactile sensors [11], accelerometers [12], optical sensors [13], biosensors [14,15], biomedical sensors [16], chemo sensors [17], and sensors for monitoring food quality [18] were fabricated and tested using various 3D printing technologies, such as fused deposition modelling (FDM), lamination and material jetting [19]. In reference [21] a microwave cavity resonator was presented for chemical
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