Seeding material

It has come to our attention that another company making acoustic flow measurements systems recommends their customers to contact Nortek for the availability of seeding material.

Nortek provides seeding material as a service to our customers but we are not organized to deliver the material to other users.  For people using third party instruments we suggest contacting our representatives for possible availability of small quantities or to contact the source directly.  

The manufacturer of the seeding material is Potters Industries and the 'Sphericel' particles are actually used as an additive to plastic construction materials. Minimum purchase quantity from Potters is 50lb.

Sphericel 110P8 Product info:
Shape: Spherical
Color: White
Composition: Borosilicate Glass
Density: 1.1 g/cc

Size
Mean: 8-13 micron
Distribution:
10%: 4-5%
50%: 9-11 micron
90%: 19-21 micron

Best regards,

Atle Lohrmann

Ali,

I would recommend contacting your local Potters Industries distributor for this quantity. Nortek typically only ships a half liter bottle with the Vectrino and isn't equipped to supply such a large quantity unfortunately. It looks like there is a distributor in Rome:

http://potters-worldwide.com/global_locations/world-europe7.asp

 

P.J.

 

Hi Ayal,

That's an interesting question. I'm sure someone out there has used Spherical in a saline environment and I haven't heard anyone say they've had problems with it.

 

The one thing I would be a little concerned with is the potential for flocculation of particles together due to the ionic strength of seawater. This should be pretty easy to check by mixing small amount of the particles with saltwater in a bottle, shaking, and seeing what happens.

 

I don't think this will be a huge issue, despite not being able to find any information on surface charge for these particles which would be what would cause them to floc. They're an industrial additive for making paints and other coating flow better and in plastic moldings, so I think they shouldn't stick together too much or they would be poor performers in the intended use.

 

P.J.