Method for Determining the Concentration of Unknown Combustible Gas

Abstract

It is known that catalytic sensors have different sensitivities to different combustible gases. Usually gas analyzers are calibrated by methane and not suitable for measuring other flammable gases. Correction is needed to get real concentration of other gases. In this paper it is shown that sensor sensitivity to one particular gas alters with sensor temperature and each gas has its own rate of reducing the sensitivity with a further increase of temperature. It allows us to calculate the concentration of unknown flammable gas. Applying this method decreases measurement error from 30–40% to 5–10% for hydrocarbons.

Keywords

• explosions
• gas detectors
• gas measurement
• hydrocarbon detection