Operation

When you walk from a hardwood floor onto a ceramic floor in bare feet, the ceramic floor feels colder – even though they are both room temperature. What your feet are detecting is the difference in effusivity between wood and ceramic – in other words, the rate at which these two different materials absorb heat and draw it away from your warm feet. The ceramic has a higher effusivity, and therefore absorbs heat from your feet more quickly, creating the sensation that it is colder.

Every material – whether a solid, liquid, powder or gas – has a specific effusivity value. As illustrated by Table 1 below, that includes the ingredients that comprise pharmaceutical products.

C-Therm has developed and patented highly accurate sensors that detect this unique characteristic of materials. Just like your feet can differentiate between carpet and ceramic, our sensors can differentiate between lactose, Avicel and calcium carbonate, as well as between grades of specific ingredients (see Table 2 below).

 Table 1: Effusivity of Pharmaceutical Ingredients

Table 2: Effusivity Range of an Excipient

To find out about specialty chemicals consisting of BioPolymers, visit FMC Corporation.