Water Vapour – the world’s most expensive terrorist

Or why things fail, jam and rust

Rust alone cost’s the world a staggering US $2.2 trillion a year*, and if you add product, system and equipment failure and jams, the cost just goes higher. The big problem is water vapour – because it has the ability to permeate through any seal, seam, barrier or connector. It seeps into all the wrong places, it can even pass through the walls of any container or enclosure.

Now, a new generation instrument from Versaperm can identify and help to resolve the issue. The Versaperm Permeability meter can measure the amount of water, oxygen, or almost any other gas, that flows through a material barrier, coating or seal causing the problems. It can also measure the overall permeability of a component, container or product. With some materials and coatings you can get an answer in as little as thirty minutes.

Water vapour in the wrong place causes electronics to fail, drugs to lose potency, printers to jam, metals to rust, seals to leak, missiles to crash, products to print poorly and a huge range of other industrial problems.

Versaperm’s permeability equipment is simple to use and provides accuracies in the Parts Per Million (PPM) range for most materials and gasses and PPB for some. It can optionally be configured to measure permeability under an extremely wide range of temperatures, pressures and environments as well and for almost all gasses and vapours. These include hydrocarbons, solvents, oxygen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, helium and water vapour.

As well as providing the equipment, Versaperm also offers a comprehensive permeability and diffusive flow laboratory testing service for companies who don’t wish to purchase their own equipment.