Transducers and Sensors Dr.

Hussam Khasawneh

The University of Jordan

Mechatronics Engineering Department
Transducers and Sensors 0908451
Dr. Hussam Khasawneh
Spring Semester 2016/2017

8. Measurement of Moisture and Humidity 1

Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

• Moisture measurement is measurement of water content in solids,

liquids, and gases.
• Humidity is a special case of moisture measurement in air.
• The properties and storage stability of most solid materials is
affected by their water content (e.g., cement, medicine, food).
• There are legal requirements to limit the moisture content of many
materials sold by weight.
• Moisture control has two motivations: Fiscal (i.e., monetary
requirements in trade) and statutory (i.e., controlled by law).
• Moisture control has many applications such as in food,
pharmaceuticals, cement, plastics, textiles, and paper.
• Humidity control is required in buildings, greenhouse and vehicles,
in order to ensure human comfort and plant welfare.

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Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

• Definitions of Humidity:
• There are three definitions for humidity:
1. Absolute Humidity: The mass of water in a unit volume of moist air
(e.g. milligrams of water vapor in one cubic meter of air).
2. Specific Humidity: The mass of water in a unit mass of moist air
(e.g., milligrams of water vapor in one kilogram of air).
3. Relative Humidity: The ratio of water vapor mass to the mass of
water vapor needed to saturate the air at a specific temperature.
This unit is dimensionless and is expressed as a percentage relative
humidity (e.g., 30% R.H.).
• The Dew Point is the temperature to which the sample becomes
saturated with water (or to which the moist air has to be cooled in
order for the water vapor to start to condense).
• By definition, at the dew point, the air has 100% relative humidity.
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Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

• Moisture measurement can be carried out by laboratory methods

that are suitable for research (these tend to require human
intervention and achieve higher accuracy) or industrial methods
that are used in automatic processes (these tend to be automatic
but achieve lower accuracy).
• Laboratory Methods for Moisture Measurement:
1. Water Separation
2. Gravimetric Methods
3. Phase change methods
4. Equilibrium relative humidity

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Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

Industrial Methods for Moisture Measurement

1. Electrical methods:
1. Microwave methods
2. Capacitive methods
3. Resistive methods
2. Neutron moderation
3. Optical methods
4. Ultrasonic methods
5. Mechanical properties

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Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

Laboratory Methods:
1. Water Separation: This relies on separating the water from the
mixture and measuring its mass.
• This can be either done by titration, distillation, or centrifugal
methods.
• It achieves an accuracy of ±0.03%.

2. Gravimetric Methods: This method relies on placing the sample

(e.g., soil) in an oven in order to remove all the moisture content.
• The sample is weighed before and after placing in the oven and the
difference represents the mass of water content.
• This method is only suitable to measure moisture in solids.
Video 8.1

8. Measurement of Moisture and Humidity 6

Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

3. Phase change methods: Phase change refers to the change of a

material from the solid state to the liquid state or from the liquid state
to the gaseous state or vice versa.
• These phase changes will be affected by the moisture content of
the material and this can be used as a method of measuring the
moisture content to recording the temperature at which the phase
change takes place.

4. Equilibrium relative humidity: If a humidity sensor is placed very

close to the sample (the moisture of which is to be measured) in an air
tight container, then the recorded humidity can be used to deduce the
moisture content of the sample.

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Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

Industrial Methods:
1. Electrical methods:
a. Microwave methods:
• These rely on passing a microwave signal through the sample and
measuring the received power of the signal at the other side.
• The moisture content will absorb a percentage of the signal power
and the loss in power can be related to the moisture content.
• This can only measure moisture content up to 45%, and can
achieve accuracies of around ±0.3%.

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Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

b. Capacitive methods:
• By measuring the capacitance between two plates in the material,
the moisture content can be calculated.
• This depends on the fact that the permittivity of water that is
different from the permittivity of air.
• This method is used in measuring the moisture content of soil and
achieves accuracies of around ±0.3%.
• The disadvantage of this method is that the plates must be
insulated, so that the low resistance does not override the
capacitance to be measured.

8. Measurement of Moisture and Humidity 9

Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

c. Resistive methods:
• The resistance of the material will depend in certain cases
on the water content and this can be used to measure the
moisture content.
• The accuracy is similar to the capacitive method.

2. Neutron moderation:
• By measuring the number of neutrons passing through a
sample, the moisture content can be deduced as the
moisture content will be inversely proportional to the
number of neutron passing through.
Video 8.2

8. Measurement of Moisture and Humidity 10

Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

3. Optical methods (measuring the refractive index):

• The refractive index of a material will depend on the speed
of light in that material.
• The moisture content of the material will affect the
refractive index.
4. Ultrasonic methods:
• The speed of sound in a material will also be altered by the
moisture content.
5. Mechanical properties:
• Some mechanical properties of certain materials (such as
density) will be affected by the moisture content.

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Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

Measurement of Humidity
1. Electrical hygrometer:
• The electrical hygrometer employs electrical methods for
measuring humidity.
• Two methods are used: Capacitive and resistive.
• Both methods rely on the use of hygroscopic materials (a
hygroscopic material is one that has affinity to water).
• Electrical hygrometers have a range of measurement of 15% RH to
95% RH.
• They achieve an uncertainty of ±3%.
• These devices can drift due to contaminants and condensation and
thus require frequent recalibration.

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Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

a. Capacitive:
• The capacitive method usually employs Aluminium Oxide (Al2O3) as
its hygroscopic material. As the humidity rises, the material
absorbs the humidity and its permittivity changes.
• This is detected as a change of capacitance. The term bulk
capacitance refers the capacitance reading at 0% RH.
• One type of capacitive transducer used is the thin film capacitive
transducer. The device is usually manufactured by depositing a thin
film of polymer or metal oxide onto a substrate (usually glass,
ceramic or Silicon) between two conductive electrodes.

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Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

b. Resistive:
• Resistive hygrometers consists of a polymer
humidity-sensing film (Calcium Chloride CaCl2)
that changes resistance with humidity. The ends
of the are connected to two pieces of metals.
• These devices usually used AC excitation (rather
than DC) to prevent long term polarization of the
device.
• They usually employ a frequency of 30 Hz to 10
kHz.
• Resistive sensors are less sensitive than
capacitive sensors – the change in material
properties is less

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Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

2. Psychrometer:
• This method employs two liquid in glass thermometers. One of
those is called the wet bulb and has a wet sock wrapped around its
bulb. The other is left dry and called dry bulb.
• Both are then moved at a certain speed (around 5 m·s-1).
• The evaporation from the wet bulb will depend on the relative
humidity and will be faster when the relative humidity is the lower.
• A temperature difference will develop between the two
thermometers.
• This can then be used to calculate the relative humidity.
• This method achieves an accuracy of around ±4%.

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Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

• Psychrometer

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Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

3. Dew Point Hygrometer:

• This is the most accurate method of all and is in fact used as a
calibration technique for other devices.
• It uses a cooled mirror surface that is highly polished. It is cooled
use the Peltier cooler. The mirror is gradually cooled until tiny
droplets of water starts forming on the mirror, indicating that the
Dew Point has been reached and that condensation has started.
• The temperature of the mirror is measured to calculate the relative
humidity of the device.
• Detection of condensation can either be done manually (using a
microscope) or automatically by sending a light beam onto the
mirror and detecting the strength of the reflected signal.
• When the signal starts to get weaker, this indicates that the Dew
Point has been reached.
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Transducers and Sensors Dr. Hussam Khasawneh

Dew Point Hygrometer:

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