Moisture adsorption desorption characteristics of stainless steel tubing measured by ball surface acoustic wave trace moisture analyzer

A ball surface acoustic wave (SAW) trace moisture analyzer (TMA) was applied to measuring the adsorption and desorption (AD) characteristics of a stainless steel tube. For the first time, two-frequency measurement for precise temperature compensation was attempted at intervals of 3 s using a burst waveform undersampling circuit. We succeeded in measuring the variations of moisture transit time and dry-down dynamics caused by inner surface treatments such as bright annealing (BA), electropolishing (EP), and electrochemical buffing (ECB) using a sample-tube length of only 100mm at a flow rate of 0.1 L/min. Net moisture adsorption was evaluated from the measured adsorption subtracted by the background adsorption. As a result, it was found that the adsorption on the ECB tube was smaller than those on EP and BA tubes by 1/3 and 1/4, respectively, at a baseline concentration of 13 ppbv. From these results, it was demonstrated that the ball SAW TMA could be used for measuring the AD characteristics of stainless steel tubes with various surface treatments.