A Miner’s Personal Carbon Monoxide Alarm

Details

• Personal Author:
  Carpenter, Clarence R. ; Chilton, Joseph E. ; Carpenter, Clarence R. ; Chilton, Joseph E.
• Description:
  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) that, when operated, will remove CO from the miner's breathing air. In addition, all underground miners must have near their work site self-contained self-rescuers (scsr) that, when activated, will supply breathing oxygen. In many situations with fires, miners do not know when to don either self-rescuer, since they have not been informed of a fire in a different mine location. Usually miners do not carry the gas instrumentation necessary for the detection of the toxic, colorless, and odorless fire product carbon monoxide. If each miner carried a personal CO alarm that responds to life-threatening concentrations of CO, the miners would then be alerted to don either the fsr or scsr and exit the mine. For this purpose, a miner's personal CO alarm prototype called pemcoal has been developed by the U.S. Bureau of Mines. The pemcoal unit is small enough to be carried on a miner's belt, has a flashlamp visual alarm, requires no calibration for use, and uses a disk sensor that changes color by reaction with carbon monoxide Pemcoal was tested at concentrations of CO to 1,000 ppm, at temperatures from 5 to 40 deg c, and with several potential mine gas interferents. The pemcoal alarm times are sufficiently fast to warn miners before they are exposed to hazardous quantities of carbon monoxide. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Air Pollutants, Occupational Environmental Monitoring Mining Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Air-filters Air-monitoring Breathing-atmospheres Gas-detectors Gases Mine-workers Miners Mining-industry Underground-miners Underground-mining
• Series:
  Mining Publications   ; Mining Publications  
• ISSN:
  0093-9994
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article ; Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; Pennsylvania
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) ; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  PRC - Pittsburgh Research Center ; PRC - Pittsburgh Research Center
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health ; Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America ; North America
• Volume:
  25
• Issue:
  3
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:10007245
• Citation:
  IEEE Trans Ind Appl 1989 May/Jun; 25(3):503-508
• CAS Registry Number:
  Carbon monoxide (CAS RN 630-08-0) ; Carbon monoxide (CAS RN 630-08-0)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1989
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7edef5e4d9a07c1b2ba348eaffaacf4f4d9e958003e768f242afeb6bd49c885dcaeb8eb54a031ed3146ceac8af46d308d198ba2077d1a76466de0c2f79a7bec6
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/219799/cdc_219799_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 744.44 KB ]