Hydrogen permeation is destructive to pressure transmitters
Simple ways to reduce downtime and maintenance expense of pressure transmitters
"What in the world happened?" Your first thought after seeing an affected transmitter. The technical term for this condition is catastrophic membrane deformation. The more ordinary term is “jiffy pop”. Any process or differential pressure transmitter with this appearance has a hydrogen permeation issue, a vacuum/temperature combination issue or all three. Depending upon the specific process conditions [pressure/ temperature] ceramic can be the best long-term solution for hydrogen migration.
Diffusion from gas environment
There is one solution that can be applied to diffusion from either a galvanic process or a hydrogen gas environment. A pressure cell with a ceramic membrane. Hydrogen molecules will not directly diffuse through a ceramic membrane. Even if hydrogen permeates the O-ring seal employed by ceramic cells it will not matter. A ceramic cell is dry [no fill fluid] so hydrogen cannot go into a solution and accumulate.