Conversion from Cubic centimeters per minute to Fluid ounces per minute

Information about the Cubic centimeter per minute (cm³/min)

The cubic centimetre per minute is a unit of volumetric flow rate equal to one cubic centimetre passing a point every minute. Its symbol is cm³/min, and since a cubic centimetre is a millilitre, mL/min means the same thing. It is the standard unit of controlled gas flow in laboratories and in the semiconductor industry.

That industry gave it an abbreviation of its own: sccm, standard cubic centimetres per minute. The word standard matters, because a gas expands and contracts with temperature and pressure, so a volume flow means nothing until the conditions are pinned down. A mass flow controller set to 50 sccm delivers a fixed number of molecules per minute regardless of what the downstream pressure does, which is precisely what a deposition or etching process requires.

A silicon wafer passing through a plasma etcher meets several such controllers at once — argon at a few hundred sccm, a reactive fluorine compound at tens, oxygen at a handful — and the recipe that defines the process is essentially a list of these numbers against time. Repeating a process in another factory means reproducing the same flows.

Chromatography and gas analysis use the unit at the low end. Helium carrier gas through a capillary column runs at one or two cubic centimetres per minute, a flame detector burns hydrogen at thirty and air at three hundred, and a mass spectrometer's inlet is designed around a flow the vacuum pumps can cope with.

Liquids appear here as well, particularly in analytical chemistry and medicine. A high-performance liquid chromatography pump runs at 0.2 to 2 cubic centimetres per minute, and an intravenous infusion of 100 millilitres over an hour is 1.67 cubic centimetres per minute. In both cases the small, steady rate is what allows the result to be reproduced.

Sixty cubic centimetres per minute is one cubic centimetre per second, and a thousand is a litre per minute. So a typical mass flow controller set to 500 sccm is delivering half a litre of gas a minute — about the volume of a soft-drink bottle, which is a helpful way to picture what an invisible gas line is actually carrying.

One cubic centimetre per minute equals one millilitre per minute, about 0.01667 cubic centimetres per second, or 0.001 litres per minute.

Information about the Fluid ounce per minute (fl oz/min)

The fluid ounce per minute is a unit of volumetric flow rate equal to one imperial fluid ounce passing a point every minute. Its symbol is fl oz/min. At 28.413 millilitres to the ounce, a minute at this rate delivers a small glass, which places the unit among the deliberate, controlled flows of food, drink and light industry.

Beverage dispensing is its steadiest employer. A post-mix drinks tower is set so that each nozzle delivers a fixed number of fluid ounces per minute, and the ratio of syrup to carbonated water — commonly one to five — is maintained by matching the two rates. A coffee machine's brew rate, a beer line's pour rate and a juice dispenser's throughput are all quoted this way.

Small dosing and metering pumps in food processing carry the same units. Flavourings, colourings, brines and preservatives are injected into a product stream at so many fluid ounces per minute, and the ratio to the main flow is what determines the finished recipe. A pump that drifts by five per cent changes the taste of every package made that shift.

Cleaning and chemical injection follow the same pattern. A dairy or brewery cleaning system meters detergent and sanitiser into circulating water at a rate in fluid ounces per minute, chosen so that the concentration in the loop matches what the supplier specifies for the temperature and contact time being used.

Laboratory and pilot-plant work in Britain and the Commonwealth still meets the unit in older equipment and older standard methods. Rotameters graduated in fluid ounces per minute remain in service, and a technician reading one must remember whether the scale is imperial or American, since the two ounces differ by four per cent.

For orientation, 60 fluid ounces per minute is one fluid ounce per second, 35 fluid ounces per minute is about a litre per minute, and 160 fluid ounces make an imperial gallon. So a dispenser running at 32 fluid ounces per minute fills a gallon in five minutes exactly.

One fluid ounce per minute equals about 28.41 millilitres per minute, about 0.02841 litres per minute, or about 0.01667 fluid ounces per second.