Oxygen sensors at a Saint Paul, MN-based gas distribution company are working backwards. Instead of looking for oxygen concentrations in the company laboratories, they are looking for no oxygen. For Oxygen Service Company, monitoring gas levels in the labs helps assure employee safety. To keep a beady eye on those O2 levels, the company uses electrochemical detectors from Sensor Electronics.
“Actually,” says analytical chemist Bruce Nasser who heads up the company’s laboratory operations, “the danger isn’t from too little oxygen but potentially lethal concentrations of other gases. A leak of some other laboratory gas could absorb enough oxygen to endanger our staff.”
Oxygen Service moves some 100,000 cylinders a year to industrial plants, welders, hospitals, medical and dental clinics, school and college laboratories, and other users in a 50-mile radius around the Twin Cities. Besides oxygen, the company handles nitrogen, argon, helium and carbon dioxide, plus acetylene for welding customers and propane for forklifts and pallet jacks.
... to continue reading you must be subscribed
