Sumitomo Seika Chemicals developed a light-weight aluminum cylinder integrated with the reducing valve “Field Cylinder” for standard gases and high-purity gas products. After the trial sales to some analyzer manufacturers and research institutes, the company summarized their opinions and continued to improve the product and eventually started to sell the cylinder from October 2017. 　

The cylinder is an upgraded model of the company’s existing small aluminum cylinder “Alolight” for standard gas with an inside capacity of 0.7ℓ. The strength has been upgraded by changing the shape of cylinder from the welded to seamless type. The filling pressure has been arisen to 9.8MPa which is three times more of Alolight. The most characteristic property is that the weight has been controlled to about 1 kg to enhance the strength of the cylinder itself although it weighs more than Alolight does. The weight is designed to be about 1.5 kg including the pressure reducing valve so that it can be taken up one-handed. The height is 367mm when the pressure reducing valve is installed. It is also one of the features as it can be placed just by the analyzers like the gas chromatography.

In the field where a small quantity of standard gas is used as a calibration gas for analyzer like for the measurement of soil contamination or air-polluting substance, there are many cases that as analyzers become compact and light weighted needing no such gas volume as supplied by a 10ℓ or 47ℓ cylinder. Therefore, there are so many cases to use small aluminum cylinders or canned gases like push-cans which are as highly portable as Alolight. In case of the canned gases, there was some problem in accuracy or stability depending on the composition of standard gas, and in case of compact aluminum cylinders no sufficient filling volume could be secured.

To solve the above-mentioned issues, however, Sumitomo Seika Chemicals started to develop more anti-pressure cylinders in 2013, and completed a prototype model in a year. Shinjiro Noda of Gas Business Division who engaged in the development said, “A seamless cylinder inevitably required a larger size and weight. To control the weight to be 1kg, we experienced continuous trial and error in such as the shape of the bottom.” In respect of also durability, the cylinder cleared the pressure cycle test at 30 thousand times (0 up to 24.5MPa). For the guarantee term of gas concentration, the same quality assurance has been attained as the general standard gases or high-purity gases.

Eiji Fujisawa group leader of Gas Business Development Div. said, “There are a variety of places for users to use standard gas, and in many cases a cylinder of 10ℓ or larger can be brought in. There also are more cases to use sensors outdoors like in farms or mountainous places, and easy-to-carry and lighter cylinders are getting more needed now.”

In the MEMS Exhibition held in October, the Field Cylinder was introduced in the “MSS” booth displaying the olfactory IOT sensors which were jointly exhibited with National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS). Toyohito Fukushima of Development Department of the company said, “So many visitors were interested in the ease of handling and sent us enquiries after the exhibition.”

Sumitomo Seika Chemicals is now aiming for supplying more than 1,000 cylinders per year to respond to such needs of new users.