Personal miner's carbon monoxide alarm. Information Circular/1989

Technical Report · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1989

OSTI ID:6916441

Chilton, J E; Carpenter, C R

Underground miners may be exposed to hazardous quantities of toxic gases, such as carbon monoxide (CO), generated from mine fires or explosions. Every underground miner is required to carry a filter self-rescuer (FSR), which when operated will remove CO from the miner's breathing air. In addition, every underground miner must have a self-contained self-rescuer (SCSR) near the worksite that will supply breathing oxygen. In many situations, miners do not know when to do either rescuer since they do not know if there is a fire in the mine nor do they carry instrumentation necessary for the detection of the toxic, colorless, and odorless fire product CO. If each miner carried a personal CO alarm, which would respond to high concentrations of CO, the miner would then be alerted when to do either the FSR or SCSR and exit the mine. A prototype personal miner's CO alarm called PEMCOAL unit is small enough to be carried on a miner's belt, has a flash lamp visual alarm, requires no calibration for use, and uses a chemical sensor that changes color by reaction with trace quantities of CO. The chemical sensor was tested at concentrations of CO from 10 to 1,000 ppm, at temperatures from 5 to 40 C, and with several potential mine gas interferents. The PEMCOAL alarm times were sufficiently fast to warn miners before they are exposed to hazardous quantities of CO.

• Research Organization: Bureau of Mines, Pittsburgh, PA (USA). Pittsburgh Research Center
• OSTI ID: 6916441
• Report Number(s): PB-90-171554/XAB; BUMINES-IC--9233
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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