Refractometers

Refractometers are devices widely used in the laboratory. Refractometer is used to test the refractive index of liquid substances.There are several basic types of refractometers: Abbe refractometer, Pulfrich refractometer, Jamin refractometer. Currently used refractometers can have very high accuracy and precision. On the market there are, among others, calibrated precision devices with automatic temperature compensation within the measurement or very simple, pocket-sized devices. With the help of a refractometer, various types of qualitative measurements, quantitative measurements and in the case of numerous physicochemical tests of substances can be made. Qualitative measurements include, for example, identification of chemical compounds and determination of the degree of contamination of compounds. Refractometers can be used for qualitative control of raw materials and products in the pharmaceutical industry, food industry, fuel industry, cosmetics industry and diagnostics. Quantitative analyses performed with a refractometer can be used to test the determination of sugar content in wine must, the determination of ethyl alcohol content in water, beer, or honey, and the determination of salt content in seawater. The refractometer used in the case of physicochemical research can be used to clarify the interaction of electromagnetic waves on the electron shells of molecules and atoms - the determination of molar reactions and its components. Currently used devices are strictly adapted by their design and accuracy of measurements to the purpose. When high accuracy and precision of measurement is required, we use digital refractometers, which refractometers provide highly accurate and repeatable measurement results, offer semi-automatic and fully automatic operation. The great advantage of digital refractometers is that only a few microliters of the test substance are required to make a measurement, and the sample applied to the prism can always be recovered after the measurement. The use of non-modern touch screens makes operation of the device intuitive. A separate section of the application of refractometers is brewing. Here, the most commonly used refractometers are handheld refractometers of small size, calibrated in degrees Brix. Refractometers used in brewing are used to quickly determine the density of wort. Wort density is not measured directly, the degree of refraction is measured, the denser the wort, the more light is refracted. Simple laboratory refractometers can already be purchased for a few hundred zlotys, while highly sophisticated, accurate automatic refractometers are an expense of up to tens of thousands of zlotys.