Choosing the right CO2 Portable Gas Detector
If you or your team work with Carbon Dioxide then a CO2 portable gas detector may be the right choice to help keep you safe, but how to choose the right one?
Carbon Dioxide has exposure limits listed by the UK government in a number of documents, most notably EH40 and BB101. This means if you are working with CO2 you will need gas detection to ensure you are not being exposed to harmful levels. This ensures that you are compliant to COSHH regulations and subsequently, The Health and Safety at Work Act. This could take the form of a portable detector, fixed detection or a mix of the two.
Generally, portables are the right choice where it would not be practical to fit a fixed gas detection system. Examples could be but not limited to:
- Staff delivering bulk CO2 or CO2 cylinders
- Delivery drivers using dry ice
- Refrigeration engineers working with CO2 as the refrigerant gas
- Dry Ice Blasting
- Gas Shrouding applications
- Personal protection for staff in the beverage industry
If a portable gas detector is the right choice for your application you have some choices to make.
It’s easy to go out and buy a portable to “tick the box” without properly considering what you need. Very common are CO2 gas detectors that measure at percentage levels, normally 0-5% v/v. However, in reality, these are not sensitive enough to provide proper protection and early alarm notification.
The major point when utilising a portable gas detector is to remember the device is only measuring the gas concentration local to its position – with you. If the room has a gas escape, then certain areas will already be at a higher CO2 concentration. This means you could already be at a toxic and potentially fatal level. The higher the range of the gas detector you hold the more insensitive it is to picking up gas leaks. This means it will take longer to respond and initiate the alarm. This is where a more sensitive 0-5000PPM level detector provides enhanced protection by alarming at a much lower level.
This also means you do not need to be close to the high concentration gas leak for the ppm level detector to alarm. Remember CO2 is classed as a toxic gas; even relatively low concentrations can be enough to have toxic and/or narcotic effects, with potentially fatal results.
This is why a 0-5000ppm CO2 detector is vital for you and your personnel safety.
In this case, looking at our graphic, the more sensitive detector will alarm faster and well before a hazardous level is reached. The 0-5000ppm detector alarms well before entering a high concentration CO2 area.
In extreme cases at high gas concentrations only a few breaths are required to render a person unconscious. IGD have experience of just such cases.
IGD’s CO2 Portable Gas Detector Solution
Our iGAS CO2 portable gas detector is the ideal solution for keeping you safe against the hazards of CO2. The iGAS provides lightweight, easy-to-use and reliable CO2 gas detection in a highly robust format. Offering benefits such as:
- IP66/67 – designed for rough and harsh working conditions
- User friendly – designed to be used by anyone using or in the presence of CO2 gas. The interface makes it incredibly user friendly.
- Programmable alarm levels depending on your countries exposure limits.
- Lightweight design at 93g
- Alarm indicators – Audible, Visual and Vibration alarms
- Low powered NDIR sensor increasing battery life – 14 days on a single charge.
- -20 to 50 degrees C operating temperature.
- USB Re-chargeable
- 30 downloadable event log
- Full downloadable data logging
- %VOL or PPM level measurements
iGAS portable CO2 detector available now
Our iGAS CO2 portable gas detectors are affordable and available to order online today. Alternatively you can request a demo unit.
