Burkert technology enables virtual scalpel
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Burkert Fluid Control Systems product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Aug 28, 2009
Burkert's CMOSens mass-flow controller technology (MFC) has enabled Plasma Surgical to develop Plasmajet, a plasma surgery system for surgical cutting and coagulation.
Plasmajet is a virtual scalpel that enables surgeons to achieve more, with less damage to tissue.
Plasmajet uses Burkert's mass flow controller technology to control very low gas flows precisely
It comprises a console, which houses the control system with LCD display and touchpad, a service trolley and a range of single-use hand pieces.
There is also an integrated cooling circuit, which uses Burkert fluid control valves to cool the tip of the hand piece.
FDA-approved, the Plasmajet system cuts and coagulates tissue with a fine beam of electrically neutral, high-energy plasma.
This is generated by ionising a low flow of inert argon gas within the insulated body of a single-use hand-piece.
The gas is excited into a plasma state and emerges from the tip of the hand piece as a precise pale-blue jet stream.
For the system to work properly, the MFC first has to provide the high-pressure/high-flow rate required to ignite the plasma, and then ramp down to tenths of slpm.
It is important that there is no over-shoot, to prevent the plasma beam from being lost.
Burkert's brief was to provide an MFC that would avoid this problem, controlling the low flow rates with a repeatable accuracy of +/-0.01 slpm.
Other elements of the specification required that the MFC should be suitable for use in EMC noisy environments (each unit is sited below a large 3.5kV power supply and has two fans working at low frequency); that each MFC should be stable between 25 and 40C; and that manufacturing tolerances should ensure each MFC has the same settling time.
The Plasmajet application includes CMOSens technology integrated into 8711 MFC that operates according to a thermal principle that delivers the mass flow without any corrections for the required pressure or temperature.
The actual flow rate is detected by a sensor embedded in the wall of a specifically designed bypass channel, into which a small part of the total gas stream is diverted, ensuring laminar flow conditions.
The sensor element, a CMOS chip, contains a heating resistor and two temperature sensors (thermopiles), which are arranged symmetrically upstream and downstream of the heater.
The differential voltage of the thermopiles is a measure of the mass flow rate passing this bypass channel; the calibration procedure ensuring assignment of the sensor signal to the total flow rate passing the device.
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