Gas Detection Through the Ages

Today, there are sensor technologies designed to detect almost any gas to which we might be exposed. Some of these technologies include, but are not limited to, infrared and photo-ionization detection. Some companies now are even using the Internet to test your detector and ensure everything is working correctly.

To understand just how far we've come in gas detection, you should know its history and evolution over time. The very first methods of detecting gases might astound you as they did me. When gas detection was first needed, there was no Internet or microprocessors — even the light bulb hadn't yet been invented.

With the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, fuel became very important. The fossil fuel used during the Industrial Revolution that still is vital to us even in the present day is coal. Coal had to be mined from the ground, and since mining was primitive, it required lots of manual labor. People working in these areas ranged from very young boys to much older men. The miners wore flame lights on their helmets so they could see in the tunnels, and used hand tools to drill the coal out of the linings of the tunnel.

Several things make mining dangerous, chief among them the possible exposure to methane. This gas especially is dangerous because it cannot be seen or smelled, and appears naturally from the ground. When miners began to realize how dangerous methane was, they started exploring ways to detect it.

CANARIES IN A COAL MINE

The first method involved using humans, as that seemed to be the only solution. Before the shift started, everyone was removed from the mine. A person would wear a wet blanket over his shoulders and head and carried a long wick with its end lit on fire. This brave person entered the mine and began to move the flame of the wick along the walls of the mine. When the man would hit a small pocket of methane gas, it would ignite, but the miner remained fairly safe under the dampened blanket. Every once in a while, the intrepid miner would hit a huge pocket of this highly explosive gas, which would ignite the entire area around him.

Before gas detection became such an integral part of worksite safety, the general feeling was that it was better to lose one man than to lose an entire group of workers. Furthermore, losing only one person meant that the work could continue.

Once people realized the dangers of detecting methane in mines using this method, they began to look for other means. The next method of detection was to take a canary into the mine. Canaries were used because they have an extremely loud chirp. Additionally, the canary has the closest resemblance to the part of our nervous system that controls breathing.

The miners would go to the area where their canaries were housed and look for the canary that appeared to be not doing well. The miner would then carry the bird in its cage into the mine. It was said that when a canary was about to die, it would start to shake the cage. If the canary did this, the miners knew to exit the mine. If the canary wasn't making any noise, they knew to make an even more urgent exit as something had caused the canary to die.