Benefits of BioTrak for Wastewater Flow Meter Solutions

Aeration Blowers, Anaerobic Digesters, Cogeneration Power

With today’s clean energy mandates and rising energy costs, wastewater treatment facilities are looking for new ways to operate more highly efficient and cost-effective facilities.

Sierra’s BioTrak, our innovative new thermal flow meter, meets the rugged demands of wastewater plants where aeration, digestion, and cogeneration play pivotal roles. The BioTrak is designed and manufactured to be the best-performing flow meter in the wastewater industry. It makes operators smarter and their processes more efficient and cost-effective.

BioTrak is created specifically for plant engineers focused on renewable wastewater processes where healthy microbial growth is crucial. It provides the precise measurements to optimize aerobic and anaerobic treatment and produce biogas. 

What Makes BioTrak Ideal for Wastewater Applications?

With AC or DC power inputs, optional hot tap capability, and remote configuration, BioTrak is easy to install, operate and adjust in the field to avoid costly and time-consuming delays. 

Have a look at its digital platform: DigiSense, BioSelect, and BioView. They gather, preview, and deliver data that supports your processes and meets regulations. Fast and Flexible, BioTrak monitors multiple gas types at the push of a button, rotate the housing as needed for tight installations, and configure meter settings from advanced software. And with reduced maintenance over the lifetime of the instrument, BioTrak significantly lowers cost and builds trust.

Reduce Downtime with a Superior Sensor Design

DigiSense is the state-of-the-art sensor technology used in BioTrak. Unlike other thermal flow sensors, it interfaces directly with the wastewater flow meter microprocessor for greater control, precision, and programmability. DigiSense accurately responds to changes in process variables (gas flow rate, pressure, and temperature) to determine mass flow rate, totalized flow, and temperature. DigiSense’s algorithms allow the meter to be calibrated on a single gas in the factory while enabling the user to select other gases in the BioSelect menu.

Get a Lower Cost of Ownership

The BioTrak, like all Sierra’s thermal mass flow meters, include engineering features designed to reduce their cost of ownership by reducing your operation costs:

• Negligible pressure drop


• High turndown and rangeability, which allow you to measure gas flow rate at low flow rates


• High accuracy, repeatability, and reproducibility


• No moving parts

In addition to the design and quality of the BioTrak, the meter can save you costs by costing less to acquire, less to install, and less to operate. It also reduces your maintenance costs and downtime and helps your facility optimize aerobic and anaerobic treatment and produce biogas.

Avoid Costly Factory Recalibrations

BioTrak’s BioSelect menu provides field-selectable air, methane, and digester gas (methane and CO2), the most common WWTP gases. It also allows you to change gases in the field without costly factory recalibration or loss of accuracy in your wastewater flow meter measurements.

Get Excellent Turndown and Accuracy at Low Flows

Volumetric and Differential pressure technology devices are commonly used in wastewater plants to measure gas flow. Unfortunately, both are inadequate to provide the accuracy needed for WWTP.

BioTrak thermal mass flow meters, unlike differential pressure and volumetric technology, measure mass flow directly with one instrument and have excellent turndown and accuracy at low flows that deliver a superior measurement and create a lower cost of ownership.

What’s The Issue with Using Volumetric and Differential Pressure Technology?

Volumetric technology does not account for temperature and pressure, making it impossible to provide an accurate flow measurement without measuring those data points with additional devices, which also increases the cost.

Differential pressure devices often used in digester gas applications are also inadequate. Digester gas is produced at low flow rates, so meters that measure very low flows are required. 

Low flows create minimal differential pressure across a differential pressure (dP) device such as an orifice plate or annubar, so the flow signal often becomes lost in the noise of the measurement. The high turndown (1000:1) provided by BioTrak overcomes the inherent limitations of dP. With BioTrak’s thermal technology, WWTP operators can measure true mass flow directly with expanded rangeability with virtually no pressure drop.  

Differential pressure devices also prove expensive to maintain, clog easily, and require a separate pressure and temperature transducer and flow computer to deliver true mass flow.

Perform Calibration Validation in 5 Minutes

For end users needing a quick and easy way to verify their meter’s calibration in the field, BioTrak offers BioCal. Initiate this feature through the meter’s display configuration panel or the BioView software. The test takes less than five minutes to run, producing a pass/fail result afterwards. This in-situ calibration validation helps operators comply with environmental mandates and eliminates the cost and inconvenience of annual factory calibration.

This Wastewater Flow Meter-It Meets the Spec

• Field-selectable gases – Air, Methane, Digester Gas (Methane and CO2)


• Direct mass flow measurement with one meter


• Accuracy: Air: ±1% of reading ±0.2% of full scale
  
  Other gases: ±1.5% of reading ±0.5% full scale


• AC or DC power input available


• Optional hot tap packing gland and retractor


• Integral and remote electronic configurations are available


• Wide measurement range up to 1000:1 turndown


• Easy to install, operate, and adjust in the field to avoid costly and time-consuming delays 

 Is BioTrak The Wastewater Flow Meter You Need?

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Learn more about BioTrak Thermal Insertion Mass Flow Meter