If a single gas or perhaps two individual gases are to be monitored and there are no other interfering gases, then gas detection can be simple and, in many cases, low cost. However, the reality for most people is that occupational health risks can arise from a variety of sources, known and unknown, and as a result the choice of monitoring technology is extremely important.
In most applications, it is possible to predict the most likely sources of contamination. For example, the gases of most interest in a hospital operating theatre would be the anaesthetic gases that are routinely employed. However, several of them are likely to be in use and other gases such as solvent vapours may also be present. A further consideration is that new anaesthetic gases may be introduced in the future and this will affect the monitoring needs.
Traditionally, contamination assessments would be undertaken by gas sampling and laboratory analysis or by leaving sorbent tubes at strategic locations for a period of time and then later removing these for laboratory analysis. Both of these methods are flawed in a number of ways.
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