Quantitative performance data of a new automatic optical bench salinometer/densitometer

One can realize a powerful optical interferometric electronical bench salinometer/ densitometer, which may even use distilled water as a reference rather than "Standard Sea Water". Major specifications of the present day prototype in terms of salinity are: Accuracy:\pm 0.005precision:\pm0.001, reasonable resolution: 0.0003. The range of measurements covers S = 0...40. A favourable feature is the inherent possibility of measurement in continuous flow. Problems of thermostating and handling of the liquid samples have been solved. Research and development is going on with emphasis on increasing the handling speed of samples. This focusses on the design of a very unconventional optical double- cuvette which allows for high speed flushing. While at OCEANS'84 the description of the foundations of the measuring principle stood in the foreground, critical data from performance tests are now to be reported on and discussed in detail.