Gas Detectors

Description

Gas detectors are electronic devices, which identifies the presence of various gases or vapors in a system or in an environment. These detectors also assist in monitoring the leakage of gases by means of an alarm indication. Hence, the gas detectors are also known as gas leak detectors. Harmful gases like ammonia, carbon monoxide, methane, etc can be detected using these kinds of gas detectors. The different methods used to detect gases involve mass spectrometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and the gas chromatography. Mass spectrometry is the most common technique used for gas detection. Some gas detectors are offered to detect one or more gases. Wide varieties of models are present in the market to suit various industrial and commercial applications.

Types

Based on the technology, gas detectors are classified as given below:

• Infrared gas detectors
• Catalytic gas detectors
• Laser based gas detectors

Other types of gas detectors are listed below:

• Combustible gas detectors
• Portable gas detectors
• Multi gas detectors

Specifications

The specifications of industrial gas detectors include:

• Input voltage
• Storage temperature
• Power dissipation
• Humidity
• Altitude
• Operating temperature range

Applications

Some of the many important applications for gas detectors are:

• Used to detect harmful gases in underground mines thereby protecting the miner
• In automobile emissions, amount of CO is detected to verify whether the vehicle comes under ‘acceptable norms’ laid by the government
• Fire fighters find them useful while fighting fires to detect release of dangerous gases as each gas requires a different fire fighting method
• Used in chemical industries to safeguard workers from harmful gases
• Used in hotels and kitchens to identify or detect the liquid petroleum gas (LPG) which is a highly flammable gas
• To detect and avoid explosions in oil and petrol tanks