23.03.2022 by Aileen Sammler

Who Has the Oldest STA still in Use? And the Winner is …

Who has the oldest STA still in use? The winner is our long-standing customer, the Fraunhofer-Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS in Dresden, Germany.

As part of our 60th anniversary, we dived into the history of our STAin February and asked: Who has the oldest instrument still in use?

The winner is our long-standing customer, the Fraunhofer-Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS in Dresden, Germany. Congratulations! Their STA 429 from 1977 is still in operation and has been lovingly preserverd and constantly modernized over many years and social upheavals. 

Focus is on investigations on the DebindingDebinding is one of the main production steps in the ceramic and powder-metallurgical industries. It refers to the thermal or catalytic removal of additives used in steps prior to production such as casting.debinding behavior or gas reactions in the production of ceramic or powder metallurgical materials, or the determination of transformation temperatures or reaction enthalpies, for example, in melting or solidification processes.

Special features of the STA 429:

  • The wide temperature range: three swiveling furnaces from -80 to 2400°C
  • The gas supply for standard investigations in helium, argon, nitrogen, hydrogen, air or oxygen, or – on request – provision of almost any gas mixtures or gas doping, also with other reactive gases such as carbon monoxide, methane or ammonia, including investigations from high vacuum (10-6 mbar) to normal pressure (approx. 1000 mbar)
  • Application for investigations in the magnetic field
  • Investigations of sample with masses from milligrams to two-digit grams or with dimensions in the one- to two-digit millimeter range

Thank you for your contribution!

The raffle continues – it’s all about coupling systems until April, 12th. Find out more here: NETZSCH – the Thermal Analysis Blog