[Stoves] CO monitoring seeking practical analogues in localtesting methods for the 90% of the rest of us

[Anand Karve]

Dear Crispin,
the biological effect of CO is that it binds with the haemoglobin in our
blood and forms a complex, which then cannot bind with oxygen. In binding
with haemoglobin, CO is, I think, about 6 times as efective as oxygen. It is
however a reversible reaction, so that expsure to oxygen restores the
haemoglobin back to its natural state. However, the death of a person is not
reversible. I can understand the point made by you that it is the ratio of
CO to oxygen or CO to CO2  that really matters, but then one can devise
a pair of paper strip indicators, one for CO and the other for CO2 and use
them together.
Yours
A.D.Karve

On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 3:57 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Richard
>
> "Whether acoustically powered or calibrated by other sensors, if such can
> be
> used to calibrate for example, a type species of local plant(s), animal(s)
> or even simpler, a locally recipe of ordinary chemicals which react to
> dangerous concentrations of CO ---as the on site indicator of CO
> concentration, THATS what we are looking for."
>
> I am afraid to say it is slightly more complicated than that and I should
> say something or people might run too far down a road leading to really bad
> information.
>
> The CO level in the emissions is not easy to quantify unless you know how
> diluted it is.  CO is not a danger on its own - it is the concentration of
> it when breathed that matters. By the time it is breathed, it has been
> diluted. How diluted was it when all the gases were passing through the
> stove (excess air)? How diluted was it before it was inhaled?
>
> In order to make a meaningful statement about the relative danger from CO
> from a stove - before getting to the point of discussing the dilution
> post-stove, we need to know either how efficiently the conversion from C to
> CO2 was (which involves absolute measurements of both CO and CO2 while
> measuring the mass loss) or we need to know the CO and the dilution.
>
> Worse, we have to know when the CO was emitted because for our purposes
> (mostly biomass stoves) the CO emission varies considerably with time - big
> time. For a normal improved stove the range of concentration will be 20:1.
>
> If you have a device that measures the CO level and dilution at one moment,
> it tells you nothing about what it will be 10 or 20 minutes later - not
> even
> within 5% of value.
>
> Even if you had a strip that changed colour slowly with exposure level and
> you photographed it every few seconds and had the ability to decode the
> colour to calculate the CO concentration get a rate of change up and down
> (at least a theoretically possible device) it would not tell you what the
> dilution was and thus you still can't work out the total.
>
> We need real time CO and O2, or CO and CO2 (from which the others can
> reasonably be calculated).
>
> Regards
> Crispin
>
> The world is getting rounder.  Help defeat global rounding
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJJpkEARIwc&feature=player_embedded
>
>
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-- 
***
Dr. A.D. Karve
President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)

*Please change my email address in your records to: adkarve at gmail.com *
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