New spectrophotometric measurement method for process control of miniaturized intensified systems

Abstract

Since the introduction of miniaturized intensified systems, it has been recognized that one of the most crucial challenges is the establishment of appropriate control strategies for the systems. The unavailability of a suitable measurement system imposes several limitations in controlling the miniaturized systems. The present research proposes a spectrophotometric measurement system for controlling miniaturized intensified systems which can be used for a wide range of measurement objectives such as micro total analysis systems (μTAS) or micro chemical plant systems (MCPs). The spectrophotometric pH measurement is selected as the case study in order to demonstrate the high performance of the proposed measurement system. An embedded PID controller in the MATLAB ® environment is used as a controller which is interfaced with LabVIEW ® in order to facilitate communication with the rig components. The results obtained from the experimental study showed that using a spectrophotometric measurement can dramatically reduce process time delay and measurement response time.