Carbon monoxide gas detection

Carbon monoxide or carbon monoxide is produced during the incomplete combustion of materials containing carbon or hydrocarbons without a sufficient supply of oxygen. Chemically speaking, it is a compound of carbon and oxygen with the formula CO. What makes this highly toxic gas so dangerous is that it is colourless, odourless and tasteless. With the right sensor technology, carbon monoxide can be measured, whereas the human body has no sensors for this toxic substance. Unfortunately, the nose fails to detect carbon monoxide: it is odourless.

In Germany alone, more than three hundred people die every year from CO poisoning, often in private households. This is because when the gas is released from a faulty stove or chimney, it cannot be detected – unlike smoke, for example. For these reasons, it is sometimes referred to as a silent killer.

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The toxicological effect

Carbon monoxide can bind to haemoglobin, the red blood pigment, up to 300 times more strongly than oxygen. As a result, poisoning leads to an extreme lack of oxygen in the body. The effects, which can occur within a very short time frame, depend on the concentration in the air we breathe. They range from headaches, nausea and cramps to hallucinations, shortness of breath and, in the worst cases, death. The treatment of patients usually consists of intubation and ventilation with 100 per cent oxygen to displace the CO molecules bound to the haemoglobin.

However, carbon monoxide not only causes acute poisoning, but also long-term damage such as depression, negative development of foetuses in the womb or heart damage, which leads to a shorter life expectancy. In Germany, a maximum limit value of 30 ppm applies to carbon monoxide in workplaces.

Measuring carbon monoxide is therefore mandatory wherever the gas is used in production or is produced by combustion processes.

Compur measuring devices for measuring carbon monoxide

Sensors that measure carbon monoxide work on the basis of infrared measurement, electrochemical sensors or semiconductor detectors. With the Monitox, Statox 505, Statox 560, Micro 5 and Microclip devices, Compur provides measuring devices and CO detectors that meet the requirements of every situation and register and display even the smallest exceedances of the limit values.