Krohne to Showcase Electromagnetic Flowmeter at INTERPHEX

Krohne, a company headquartered in Duisburg, Germany that specializes in process instrumentation, has announced its display at INTERPHEX 2025 in New York City will highlight the company’s Flexmag 4050C electromagnetic flowmeter (1).

According to a press release from Krohne, the flowmeter is the first of its kind wiith a biocompatible, disposable flow tube that has been designed specifically for single-use biopharmaceutical applications, such as filtration processes, chromatography, and buffer and media preparation (1,2). The flowmeter is highly accurate and factory calibrated, eliminating the need for in-situ calibration due to the fact that the instrument’s electromagnetic meter will not drift over time, according to a company press release.

The flow tube is designed with a single barb fitting, suitable for both braided and non-braided hoses. This design meets regulatory requirements for being adapted to single-use systems (1,2). Construction of the tube has been designed for minimal hold-up volume without obstruction, according to the company. The volumetric flow measurement that is provided is described by Krohne as stable, direct, and accurate.

Disposable, single-use flow tubes are packaged in individual pouches that are double-sealed, Krohne said, with the transmitter being able to accommodate two different tube sizes; this affords the end user the opportunity to exchange the tube to handle two different flow ranges without the need for recalibration (1,2).

In December 2024, Pharmaceutical Technology® sat down with Christian Dunne, director of Global Corporate Business Development at ChargePoint Technology, to discuss processing equipment trends, and Dunne said single-use technology is one of those at the moment (3).

“Obviously, you get a lot of flexibility with the single-use technology, and a lot of reduced risk in terms of the operator protection,” Dunne said in the interview. “But of course, it's got the added advantage of cost being a main driver for a lot of the companies like CMOs [contract manufacturing organizations].”

Click here for Dunne’s full video interview.

In some of the applications for which the Flexmag flowmeter has been developed, automation has been increasingly used—but with a caveat, according to Anthony Christopher, commercial manager of bioprocessing at Kent Elastomer Products, in the March 2025 issue of Pharmaceutical Technology® (4).

“From what our team has seen, most commercial biomanufacturing processes are partially automated, with automation implemented in upstream (e.g., bioreactors, feeding systems) and downstream (e.g., chromatography, filtration) steps,” Christopher said in the article, adding that manual intervention is needed for setup, troubleshooting, and quality control, but that many facilities now use automated systems for data collection, process monitoring, and quality assurance. “But,” he qualified, “full end-to-end automation is rare” (4).

Krohne will be displaying the Flexmag 4050C flowmeter at Booth 1462 at INTERPHEX, which will be held at the Javits Center in New York City from April 1–3, 2025 (1).

All of Pharmaceutical Technology®’s INTERPHEX coverage before, during, and after the 2025 conference can be accessed at this link.

References

1. Krohne. Krohne Highlights Flexmag 4050C Electromagnetic Flow Meter at INTERPHEX 2025. Press Release. March 18, 2025.
2. Krohne. Single-Use Electromagnetic Flow Meter. Pharmaceutical Technology 2018, 42 (8) 12.
3. Thomas, F. A Greater Need for Containment: Processing Equipment Trends. PharmTech.com, Dec. 16, 2024.
4. Mirasol, F. Accelerating Adoption of Smart Tools to Advance Manufacturing. Pharmaceutical Technology 2025, 49 (2) 10–13.