This article contains paid for content produced in collaboration with Protea.
Protea’s atmosFIR CEM has been certified under EN 15267-3 for HF and has had the certification range improved for HCl. This allows our FTIR-based CEM to be deployed on sites with lower ELVs for these gases, whilst also measuring 12+ other gases. The certification testing, carried out at TÜV SÜD, was a challenging task for the Protea team as it represents one of the lowest measurement ranges of any certified extractive CEM. The atmosFIR CEM passed all but one of the tests required for a HF certification range of 0 – 1.5mg/3, however certification has been granted at 0 – 3mg/m3 range.
The atmosFIR CEM already had certification for other combustion gas products of incineration.
Additional laboratory testing was carried out at TÜV’s site in Munich where they have the experience and tools to generate the low levels of gas needed. Field testing was carried out at an incinerator in Olching, Munich in 2023.
Protea’s product leader Dr Victoria Brewster was responsible for the successful testing. “At this low range the IR absorption of molecules is very small. Differentiating these from noise and other gases is where the challenge lies. Protea uses a combination of spectral pre-processing and multivariate analysis to allow us to measure HF and HCl at sub-ppm levels with the same hardware that simultaneously measures percentage volume levels of other gases”
“Protea has a long history of applying FTIR to many challenging gas applications” says Andy Toy, Managing Director. “By taking our knowledge of spectral analysis from areas such as hydrogen impurity analysis, carbon capture and ambient air, we were able to improve the analytical process to achieve this very low certification range.” Not only for HF, but Protea have also improved the measurement ability of another acid gas; HCl.
“We have worked for many years with colleagues looking for improvements to the instrumental methods for HCl. Whilst current emission limit values are still at around 10mg/m3 the atmosFIR FTIR now has a certified range of 7.5mg/m3. This allows for ELVs of 5mg/m3 for HCl to be assessed in the future.”
