The current misconceptions when selecting toxic and harmful gas detectors:
In China, due to historical and cognitive reasons, there are still many problems when selecting various types of detectors, which are specifically reflected in:
a. The detection of combustible gases is more important than the detection of toxic gases.
b. The detection of gases that may cause acute poisoning is more important than the detection of gases that may cause chronic poisoning.
Due to the lessons learned from numerous explosion accidents caused by combustible gas leaks, people attach great importance to combustible gas detection. It can be said that in any refinery or chemical plant, the gas detector used in the vast majority of hazardous situations is a combustible gas detector. But equipping only combustible gas detectors is still far from enough to truly protect the safety and health of workers. It is undeniable that most volatile hazardous gases are flammable and explosive. However, catalytic combustion type combustible gas detectors (LELs) are not a good choice for detecting all combustible gases, as the lower limit concentration of combustible gases other than methane they can detect is much higher than their allowable concentration. For example, for dangerous and toxic gases such as benzene and ammonia, simply using flammable and explosive gas detectors is a very dangerous practice. For example, the lower explosive limit of benzene is 1.2%, and its correction coefficient on a combustible gas detector is 2.51, which means that the displayed concentration of benzene on a combustible gas detector calibrated with methane is only 40% of its actual concentration!! In this way, the minimum alarm concentration of benzene that can be detected using a combustible gas detector is 10% LEL=10% * 1.2% * 2.51=3.0 * 10-3, which is nearly 600 times higher than the allowable concentration of benzene 5 * 10-6!!. Similarly, using a combustible gas detector to detect ammonia, the alarm concentration of 1.5 * 10-2 is also about 1000 times higher than its allowable concentration of 5 * 10-5. Therefore, based on the different gases detected, selecting a specific toxic gas detector is safer and more reliable than simply selecting a combustible gas detector.
In addition, currently we attach great importance to the detection of gases that can cause acute poisoning, such as hydrogen sulfide and cyanuric acid. However, we do not pay enough attention to the detection of gases that can cause chronic poisoning, such as aromatic hydrocarbons and alcohols. In fact, the latter poses no less harm to the health and safety of workers than gases that can cause acute poisoning! In addition to cognitive reasons, the lack of gas detectors capable of detecting lower concentrations in the previous market was also an important reason.
With the development of science and technology and the improvement of people's awareness of health, people are no longer satisfied with "coming to work happily and going home safely", but are pursuing a higher quality of life and living conditions. People are not only concerned about today's work, but also about tomorrow's life after retirement. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly introduce new concepts and ideas in industrial health and safety work in order to avoid future tragedies. And to avoid future tragedies, all of these need to be continuously improved and improved through the formulation of regulations and the improvement of people's quality.
