[Stoves] the search for the CO2 / CO monitoring device/ method... looking for the canary in the coal shaft

[Richard Stanley]

Crispin,

I appreciate your detailed alliteration of the possible permutations of the problem per a sound (western) scientific approach  but in the main, the hunt for the canary (albeit for a very different chemical compound) must continue.. 

We can safely suspect that if the analogous canary survives or dies in the coal shaft, it is most likely due to many variables related to our own system capacity / tolerances... But no matter, we're at two end of the same tunnel burrowing to the same point...

And quite admittedly, one approach must not ignore the other...

Aluta continua,

Richard
 
Arushainni
Nchi ya Tanzania 

On Oct 22, 2010, at 12:57 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott 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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