Choosing the Right Gas Analyser - Dominic Duggan

Quantitech Director Dominic Duggan outlines the key factors affecting the choice of analyser for process, ambient and stack monitoring. In doing so, he claims that FTIR has become the dominant technology.

A potentially bewildering array of options present gas detection professionals with an opportunity to spend anything from a few hundred to tens of thousands of pounds on a single analyser. This choice is further complicated by the emergence of new technologies and new regulatory requirements, so whilst this article will provide an outline of some of the options, there is no substitute for expert advice.

Traditionally commonplace in occupational safety monitoring, multiparameter analysers enable operators to test for the gases of most concern in the workplace. However, in recent years,multiparameter gas analysers have become more prevalent in stack gas analysis as the technology has been proven and MCERTS approved instruments have become available.

Multiparameter analysers are generally more expensive than single parameter analysers. However, the cost comparison moves in favour of multiparameter as more gases are measured. Furthermore, many
process operators have chosen multiparameter because it provides them with the option to add further gases at a later stage – ’future proofing’ their monitoring capability.

As the leading proponent of FTIR in the UK, Quantitech has an obvious bias in favour of this technology. However, as time passes, FTIR is finding ever-increasing application in a wide variety of industries and applications. Whilst writing this article, for example, an engineer called for advice on themeasurement of Benzene. A single parameter infrared analyser at a cost of about £10k was the obvious solution. Then the caller mentioned a further need tomeasure Sulphur Hexafluoride, which would incur a further £10k. So, at this point portable FTIR has to come into consideration because if the caller needs tomeasure three parameters, now or in the future, then the cost-effectiveness of multiparameter starts to outweigh single parameter analysers.