I’ve seen them used (rarely) to control calibration gas to isolated instrumentation but that application is usually stainless tubing and electrical SOVs; the difference between the two being mainly budget.
I have a project on the bench consisting of 8 low voltage DC relays connected to 8 1/4” SOVs that start/ stop water flow to 8 misters in our greenhouse to assist in temperature control. We have 5 independent hydroponic systems that my wife uses to grow cukes , peppers and the like. Seeing as they finally legalized weed, I’m going to give that a try next spring.
I already installed a louvered wall fan with 2-speed temperature controller but that’s not enough some days, so I also added roof and wall blinds but now we’re into full time babysitting, managing louvers and blinds. The misters are already installed so I know they will do the job; some overhead and some just above the 3/4” washed crush gravel floor. The plan is to program an Arduino to open one mister at a time as the greenhouse temperature rises, and turn them on/ off as required to maintain setpoint.
Pinch solenoids would make my application much easier as there would be no need for inlet & outlet connections at the SOVs, and no possibility of leaks, but my budget is pretty low... like $100 all in...