How to Convert Kilograms per Hour to Grams per Minute

Liquid flow could be described in units of mass per time.

Engineers often have to describe the mass flow rate of a substance. The process they are measuring might be the flow of a liquid through a pipe, a gas passing down a duct or a powder moving along a conveyor. Because the metric system has many advantages, such as ease of conversion between units, the measures of kilograms per hour (kg/hr) or grams per minute (g/min) are convenient to use. You can convert between these units using a couple of conversion factors.

Instructions

1. Enter the numerical value of the rate, in units of kg/hr, into the calculator. For example, if your rate was 28 kg/hr, you would enter 28.

2. Multiply the value you just entered by 1,000. Because there are 1,000 grams in a kilogram, this converts the rate into units of g/hr. In the example, you would calculate 28 times 1,000 to obtain 28,000 g/hr.

3. Divide the value of the previous calculation by 60. This converts the units into g/min, because there are 60 minutes in one hour. This calculation in the case of the example would be 28,000 divided by 60 to obtain 467 g/min.

Tips & Warnings

• If you want to perform this conversion in a single step, you can multiply the original value in kg/hr by 16.67, which is 1,000 divided by 60.

References

• Polytechnic University of New York: CBE2124; Chapter 3; Process Variables; R. Levicky
• U.S. Metric Association: Commonly Used Metric System Units, Symbols and Prefixes

Resources

• Christian Brothers University: Intro Chem Eng; Process Variables; Mass; R.M. Price; 2004