High Purity and Ultra High Purity Regulators

Common questions

What makes a regulator high purity?

Three things you can check on the specification. The wetted materials, the internal surface finish and the leak rate. In this range the bodies are AISI 316L stainless steel, the internal finish is Ra 0.4 micron with electropolished options to 0.25 and 0.13 micron, and the leak rate is 1 x 10-9 mbar litres per second outboard and inboard. Assembly and packaging to cleanroom practice complete it.

What does UHP mean?

Ultra high purity. In gas systems it describes work where contamination measured in parts per billion matters, typically semiconductor, analytical and pharmaceutical processes. At that level the delivery equipment is part of the purity specification rather than an accessory to it, because seals, internal volume and surface finish all contribute impurities of their own.

What is a tied diaphragm, and what does springless mean?

In a tied diaphragm design the seat is fixed to the diaphragm itself rather than pushed onto it by a separate spring loaded poppet. That takes parts out of the gas path, keeps the internal volume small and gives a positive lift off the seat. Four of the six regulators in this range use it, and the other two use a free diaphragm.