Cross Calibration of Pellistor (Catalytic Flame) Sensors‡

After last week’s comparative levity, this week, I am discussing something rather more serious.

When it comes to detecting hydrocarbons, we often don’t have a cylinder of target gas available to perform a straight calibration, so we use a surrogate gas and cross calibrate. This is a problem because pellistor’s give relative responses to different  flammable gases at different levels. Hence, with a small molecule gas like methane a pellistor is more sensitive and gives a higher reading than a heavy hydrocarbon like kerosene.

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