Carbon monoxide gas detection

Carbon monoxide is produced during the incomplete combustion of carbon or hydrocarbons without 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 appropriate sensor technology carbon monoxide can be measured, whereas the human body has no sense of smell for this toxic substance. The human 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 happens when the gas is released from a faulty stove or chimney. As it cannot be detected – unlike smoke – it is sometimes referred to as a silent killer.

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The toxic effect

Carbon monoxide can bind to hemoglobin, the red blood pigment, up to 300 times stronger 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, depend on the concentration in the ambient air. They range from headaches, nausea and cramps to hallucinations, shortness of breath and, in the worst case, death. The treatment of patients usually consists of intubation and ventilation with 100 % oxygen in order to displace the CO molecules bound to the hemoglobin.

However, carbon monoxide not only causes acute poisoning, but also long-term damage such as depression, negative development of fetuses 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 Statox 506 and Statox 560 devices, Compur provides measuring technology and CO detectors that meet the requirements of industrial safety and register and display even the smallest exceedance of thealarm threshold limit values.