Laboratory in a tube - Dräger - USAwe knock on his side door to say: ‘welcome to the hospital....

Gas Detection Laboratory in a tube

Mining Safety through rescue chambers

and respiratory equipment

Nanotechnology Tiny helpers with a big impact

When Forests Burn Concepts for fighting fire with fire

The Magazine for Safety Technology June 2010

Dräger Review 100

E01_Cover385_S 1 26.05.2010 6:26:29 Uhr

It’s a Riddle!Quality is a matter of details, and at Dräger you’ll find top quality in every product – including the roughly 250 gas detection tubes. But how many different gases can they identify? You’ll find some hints starting on page 28.1. 250+ 2. About 500 3. Over 1,500

Send us the correct answer via e-mail to [email protected] or on a postcard to our editorial address (you’ll find it on page 34), and you may win one of 30 USB sticks with 4 GB of memory!

The deadline for entries is July 31, 2010. Winners will be notified in writing, so please indicate your name and address. Prizes cannot be paid in cash. Dräger employees are not entitled to participate. Participants hereby waive all legal rights to enforce any award.

E02_Rätselhaft_S 2 26.05.2010 12:43:29 Uhr

3Dräger review 100 | June 2010

Contents

experienCe 4 people Who perform Training

for air rescue operations in germany; screening for drug users in Spain.

neWs 6 news from the World of Dräger

The HPS 3100 universal helmet from Dräger. A new emergency ambulance for preterm infants. Dräger review in german, english, and Spanish.

FoCus 8 Fighting Fire with Fire Forest fires

pose a huge threat to human lives, safety, and property. The battle against forest fires calls for unusual strategies – and physical courage.

report 14 Deep Within the Mountain

State-of-the-art rescue concepts for mining focus on safer rooms under-ground – and inno vative respiratory protection equipment.

18 Bubble-free Diving in europe’s largest indoor diving facility, rescue divers can practice at depths of up to 20 meters.

20 the push-button inferno A fire simulation facility in vire, France, enables firefighters to prepare for real-life calls.

BaCkgrounD 24 infrared Measurement of gases

How does the detection of flammable liquids work? The third and last part of the series explains the details.

insight 28 Where gases show their Colors

Dräger tubes analyze invisible dangers.

outlook 32 nanoworld sensors Tiny carbon

nanotubes are set for a big career in many fields, including measuring technology.

serviCe

34 Where and Who? Dräger worldwide; publishing information.

Close-up 36 Quick rescue with plenty of time

The closed-circuit breathing apparatus PSS Bg4 plus provides up to four hours of clean breathing air.

about 3,000,000 liters of water are contained in europe’s largest indoor diving facility, located near Cologne, germany. read more starting on page 18.

18 Water 24 air8 Fire

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4 Dräger review 100 | June 2010

Francisco Javier Rodríguez-Madridejos Jiménez, Police Chief of Seseña, Castilla-La Mancha / Spain“until two years ago we had no equipment for doing drug tests. we sim-ply had to let suspects go, and it was really frustrating not to be able to take any action. it’s true that we always caught drunken drivers during our traffic checks, but the issue of drivers on drugs was left completely open. That ate away at my professional pride: we were sending time bombs on wheels back out onto the streets. Things just couldn’t go on that way. Our community, Seseña, is located in the north of Castilla-La Mancha and has less than 20,000 inhabitants. Madrid is not far away, so we have a lot of through traffic.

Two years ago i initiated the project “no drugs at the wheel!”. we bought a reliable mobile drugs of abuse detection system from Dräger – and now we can finally conduct comprehensive and effective drug screening. P

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Marco Monnig, specialist nurse and paramedic at the ADAC Air Rescue division, Munich / Germany“it’s a good feeling when you see the child is alive – and watch it leave the hospital with its parents! i have experienced heart-pounding responses for newborn babies a number of times, and it has affected me. a rapid treatment, at the right moment, means the difference between life and death. if it works, the patient is rescued. That’s our objective!

There’s little room for error. The right equipment and know ledge need to be deployed at the right place. Our tool is the helicopter. but a tool is only as good as the hands that guide it. and to insure that they’re the best, we provide intensive training. My colleagues have come here from all over to be trained. and we train to act as a team – the seamless coordination of all involved is crucial on board. ‘ChristophSim,’ our train-

ing tool made of wood, is in hangelar near bonn. it’s constructed as an exact replica of its flying counterparts: perfusors, monitors, an Oxylog 3000, and little space. The SimMan, our patient, is true-to-life. he can actualize bodily functions, be auscultated and ventilated.

it’s also vitally important to be able to plan ahead under stress. any-one here who is trained in air rescue knows: “i can’t just pull over and stop on the shoulder of the road if something hasn’t been correctly thought through.” Once in the air, we already need to have an overview of what we’re doing. Does ‘ChristophSim’ really work? Time and again we knock on his side door to say: ‘welcome to the hospital. you’ve landed’ – that’s how gripping the simulation is.”

What Moves Us – Dräger Worldwide

ExPERiEnCE PeOPLe whO PerfOrM

E04-05_Erfahrung_S 4 26.05.2010 6:29:09 Uhr

Dräger review 100 | June 2010

Francisco Javier Rodríguez-Madridejos Jiménez, Police Chief of Seseña, Castilla-La Mancha / Spain“until two years ago we had no equipment for doing drug tests. we sim-ply had to let suspects go, and it was really frustrating not to be able to take any action. it’s true that we always caught drunken drivers during our traffic checks, but the issue of drivers on drugs was left completely open. That ate away at my professional pride: we were sending time bombs on wheels back out onto the streets. Things just couldn’t go on that way. Our community, Seseña, is located in the north of Castilla-La Mancha and has less than 20,000 inhabitants. Madrid is not far away, so we have a lot of through traffic.

Two years ago i initiated the project ‘no drugs at the wheel!’. we bought a reliable mobile drugs of abuse detection system from Dräger – and now we can finally conduct comprehensive and effective drug screening.

The results have been amazing: Sometimes we catch eight drivers on drugs for every one drunken driver. But drug users’ attitudes are slowly changing.

when we confront them with the test results, they’re astonished and incredulous. They no longer have any excuses. Many of them then tell us about their worries and problems, and we listen to them with a psychologist’s sensitivity in order to find out what factors are influenc-ing their condition. Mostly these are people of a certain age, about 40, and the drug is mostly cocaine. A 20-year-old who smokes marijuana reacts differently. in 97 percent of the cases, these people pay the fine immediately. we also have the feeling that they realize how efficient the police force is and that they have a bad conscience because of their consumption of illegal substances.” P

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Marco Monnig, specialist nurse and paramedic at the ADAC Air Rescue division, Munich / Germanying tool made of wood, is in hangelar near Bonn. it’s constructed as an exact replica of its flying counterparts: perfusors, monitors, an Oxylog 3000, and little space. The SimMan, our patient, is true-to-life. he can actualize bodily functions, be auscultated and ventilated.

it’s also vitally important to be able to plan ahead under stress. Any-one here who is trained in air rescue knows: “i can’t just pull over and stop on the shoulder of the road if something hasn’t been correctly thought through.” Once in the air, we already need to have an overview of what we’re doing. Does ‘ChristophSim’ really work? Time and again we knock on his side door to say: ‘welcome to the hospital. you’ve landed’ – that’s how gripping the simulation is.”

What Moves Us – Dräger Worldwide

E04-05_Erfahrung_S 5 26.05.2010 12:44:51 Uhr


News


Dräger HPs 3100 Universal HelmetThe Dräger HPS 3100 multifunctional universal helmet is ideal for challenging assignments in the field, such as forest fires, traffic accidents or mountain rescue missions. it combines optimal protective functions, thanks to the integrated poly- styrol inner shell, and is very comfortable as a result of features such as the four-point harness and padding throughout the entire head area. An adjust- ment wheel lets the helmet fit individual head sizes. The ventilation system ensures a comfortable temperature and humidity level inside the helmet, even during long periods of forest firefighting. A metal lattice keeps out large debris particles, and the ventilation system can be closed with a simple slide control to protect the wearer from smoke or extin-guishing water. The modern design and structure of the HPS 3100 make it a combination of an industrial safety helmet according to en 397 and a mountain-eer helmet according to en 12492. The entire inner suspension ring and the neck curtain are padded. A comprehensive range of accessories, including an electric visor, optimizes the helmet for a multitude of special applications. The market launch is planned for the third quarter of 2010.

Italy: First smartPilot ViewThe history of the Ospedale Maggiore began in 1351. Today the 638-bed hos pital, which is located about 50 kilometers southeast of Milan, serves about 150,000 residents in the surrounding region. it recently acquired two new Zeus infinity empowered anesthesia systems – including a SmartPilot view. “That makes this hospital the first one worldwide that can monitor the anesthesia stage with the help of our smart display,” says emilio Car - mignotto of the Dräger sales team. Dr. Agostino Dossena, Director of Anesthesia at the Ospedale Maggiore, chose the anesthesia systems first, and was then impressed by the sophisticated monitoring technology.

The SmartPilot view supports the anesthesiologist in the operating room from the initial administration of the anesthesia all the way to the wake-up phase. All of the important data – including a forecast of the course of the anesthesia – is graphically depicted on a large display.

smartPilot View provides an overview.For challenging assignments: the HPs 3100.

A New emergency Ambulance for Preterm InfantsAbout 700,000 babies are born in germany every year. Some 30,000 of them have to be transferred from children’s and maternity hospitals to special clinics, either because they are preterm infants or because a child with a normal birth develops life-threatening complications. Transporting these babies calls for specially equipped emergency ambulances, and the Björn Steiger Foundation has been developing them since 1974. The latest model is scheduled to be inaugurated in the second half of the year. “neo natologists are already calling it a quantum leap,” says Melanie Storch, who works at the foundation. it cost about one million euros to develop the prototype, and the foundation intends to finance 100 of these ambulances by 2014 at a unit price of about 200,000 euros.

The centerpiece of the emergency ambulance for babies is the crosswise transport incubator. “in newborn babies the fontanelles in the skull have not yet closed,” Storch ex-plains. “That’s why the babies have to lie crosswise to the direction of movement so they won’t be affected by the acceleration and deceleration during the drive.” However, this kind of crosswise transport is not possible in conventional ambulances. in addition, the newly developed model is equipped with an innovative active damping system that significantly reduces shocks and vibrations. An electric motor and pneumatic springs are capable of cushioning even the impact of ten-centimeter-deep potholes. Dräger will provide almost all of the vehicle’s medical technology equipment. This includes the transport incubator system, which was developed in cooperation with neonatologists, nurses, and midwives, as well as an international team of medical technicians. The central gas supply equipment, respirators, and monitoring systems also come from Dräger. in addition, acoustics special-ists at the Dräger test center are working on the sound insulation inside the emergency ambulance for babies.

In Abraham’s bosom: Quiet and gentle transportation for babies.

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DRÄGER REVIEW 100 | JUNE 2010 7DRÄGER REVIEW 100 | JUNE 2010

Italy: First SmartPilot ViewThe history of the Ospedale Maggiore began in 1351. Today the 638-bed hos pital, which is located about 50 kilometers southeast of Milan, serves about 150,000 residents in the surrounding region. It recently acquired two new Zeus Infinity Empowered anesthesia systems – including a SmartPilot View. “That makes this hospital the first one worldwide that can monitor the anesthesia stage with the help of our smart display,” says Emilio Car -mignotto of the Dräger sales team. Dr. Agostino Dossena, Director of Anesthesia at the Ospedale Maggiore, chose the anesthesia systems first, and was then impressed by the sophisticated monitoring technology.

The SmartPilot View supports the anesthesiologist in the operating room from the initial administration of the anesthesia all the way to the wake-up phase. All of the important data – including a forecast of the course of the anesthesia – is graphically depicted on a large display.

SmartPilot View provides an overview.

A New Emergency Ambulance for Preterm InfantsAbout 700,000 babies are born in Germany every year. Some 30,000 of them have to be transferred from children’s and maternity hospitals to special clinics, either because they are preterm infants or because a child with a normal birth develops life-threatening complications. Transporting these babies calls for specially equipped emergency ambulances, and the Björn Steiger Foundation has been developing them since 1974. The latest model is scheduled to be inaugurated in the second half of the year. “Neo natologists are already calling it a quantum leap,” says Melanie Storch, who works at the foundation. It cost about one million euros to develop the prototype, and the foundation intends to finance 100 of these ambulances by 2014 at a unit price of about 200,000 euros.

The centerpiece of the emergency ambulance for babies is the crosswise transport incubator. “In newborn babies the fontanelles in the skull have not yet closed,” Storch ex-plains. “That’s why the babies have to lie crosswise to the direction of movement so they won’t be affected by the acceleration and deceleration during the drive.” However, this kind of crosswise transport is not possible in conventional ambulances. In addition, the newly developed model is equipped with an innovative active damping system that significantly reduces shocks and vibrations. An electric motor and pneumatic springs are capable of cushioning even the impact of ten-centimeter-deep potholes. Dräger will provide almost all of the vehicle’s medical technology equipment. This includes the transport incubator system, which was developed in cooperation with neonatologists, nurses, and midwives, as well as an international team of medical technicians. The central gas supply equipment, respirators, and monitoring systems also come from Dräger. In addition, acoustics special-ists at the Dräger test center are working on the sound insulation inside the emergency ambulance for babies.

In Abraham’s bosom: Quiet and gentle transportation for babies.

A Dräger Website for 48 CountriesThe slogan “One Dräger – One Voice” now also applies to the Internet. Thanks to a recent innovation, the company’s website now automatically registers the country from which it is being accessed and then redirects the user to the corresponding local website. This feature now applies to 48 countries and 29 languages.

All of the websites offer general infor-mation about the company as well as information and fascinating 360° views of Dräger products, videos, and pro-duct demonstrations. Visitors can find out more about the company and its pro-duct range by clicking on links such as “Products & Services,” “Careers,” “Investor Relations,” “Press Center.” You can find an overview of the contents of Dräger Review in the “About Dräger” section. www.draeger.com

Customer-friendly: the Dräger website.

Dräger Review in German, English, and SpanishEver since its first issue in the summer of 1912, Dräger Review has informed its readers about the company’s technological products and their applications. The first issue in English, which was published in 1959, featured the use of compressed-air breathing equipment in the mining industry and firefighting. This issue of the magazine is the 385th published in German and the 100th published in English.

“This is our demonstration that we speak our customers’ language, not just metaphorically but also literally,” says Burkard Dillig with a smile. Dillig, who is currently Dräger’s press spokesman, was responsible for Dräger Review for over 20 years until the end of 2007. In this, its 99th year, the magazine is launching an additional edition in Spanish, which is soon to be followed by one in French. By taking these steps, the company is responding to the growing significance of the markets where these global languages are spoken. “We feel the same way about Dräger Review as we do about our products,” says Stefan Dräger, CEO of Drägerwerk Verwal tungs AG. “Everything we produce should provide our customers with maximum utility.”

Since the end of 2008, the new design has been accompanied by technical in formation and local reports that are appreciated by many readers. Today, three issues of Dräger Review in two versions – one for each corporate division – are published annually. It has a total circulation of over 80,000 copies.

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Das Magazin für die Sicherheitstechnik Juni 2010

Drägerheft 385

Gasmesstechnik

Das Labor im Rohr

Unter Tage

Sicherheit durch Fluchtkammern

und innovativen Atemschutz

Nanotechnologie

Kleine Helfer groß im Kommen

Wenn Wälder brennen

Konzepte gegen die heiße Gefahr

Das Magazin für die Sicherheitstechnik

Drägerheft

Wenn Wälder brennen

Konzepte gegen die heiße Gefahr

Gas Detection Laboratory in a tube

Mining Safety through rescue chambers


Nanotechnology Tiny helpers with a big impact

When Forests Burn Concepts for fighting fire with fire


Dräger Review 100

Gas DetectionLaboratory in a tube

MiningSafety through rescue chambers


NanotechnologyTiny helpers with a big impact

When Forests BurnConcepts for fighting fire with fire


Dräger Review100Dräger Review100Dräger ReviewDetección de gases Laboratorio en un tubo

Minería Seguridad gracias a refugios e innovadora protección respiratoriaNanotecnología

Pequeñas ayudas con gran efecto

Cuando los bosques arden Conceptos para combatir el fuego con fuego

La revista de la tecnología de seguridad Junio de 2010

Dräger Review 1

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8 Dräger review 100 | June 2010 Dräger review 100 | June 2010

He looks like an arsonist, but he’s actually a firefighter

setting a firebreak.

E08-13_Waldbrand_S_neu 8 26.05.2010 8:32:07 Uhr

Dräger review 100 | June 2010 9Dräger review 100 | June 2010

Forest Fires Focus

>

Fighting Fire with FireFire is often successfully Fought with Fire – for prevention purposes and as a last resort.

W hen we think of forest fires, the places that automatically come to mind are Greece, Portugal,

Australia, and California. What we often fail to realize, however, is that forest fires are a not an uncommon occurrence in more northerly latitudes, too. Take Russia, for example. There are between 20,000 and 35,000 fires a year in Russia’s 800 mil-lion hectares of coniferous forest, the larg-est contiguous wooded area in the world. Each summer, the fire departments there face the monstrous task of fighting fires in an area almost as large as the U.S.

Even damp Germany is a forest fire country. “The authorities registered roughly 1,000 forest fires in 2009,” says Detlef Maushake, Training Director for Wildland Firefighting at the German aid organization @fire, which provides fire-fighting and rescue assistance to its Eu-ropean neighbors but was also recently deployed to Haiti following the devastat-ing earthquake there. “Open-area fires are not included in the statistics. We es-timate that the total number is roughly four to five times greater than the re-ported cases,” he adds. And the number of fires is increasing: The average surface area consumed by forest fires in the Med-iterranean region annually has increased fourfold since the 1960s.

People are the main cause of fire

Is climate change the reason for these huge numbers? Maushake sighs. He is often asked this question, but he cannot provide a definitive answer. Researchers suspect that the number of fires in the un-populated expanses of Siberia, the U.S.,

and Canada certainly could increase due to dry conditions and elevated tempera-tures. The greenhouse gas carbon dioxide released by these fires could then cause the atmosphere to heat up even faster as part of a vicious cycle. In densely pop-ulated Europe, however, experts such as Maushake consider humans to be the number one cause of fires. And not just in Europe. An estimated 95 percent of all fires worldwide are caused by people. The root cause is often care-lessness, such as a BBQ fire in difficult terrain or a car with a hot catalytic con-verter that is parked over dry leaves. How-ever, the experts also often find evidence of arson – driven by malice, pyromania, insurance fraud, or real estate specula-tion aimed at turning supposedly useless forest into productive pasture or expen-sive building land. Unfortunately, fires are sometimes lit as a job-creation mea-sure. In Spain, Portugal, and Greece, most firefighters are hired on an as-needed basis, and some are not above creating the need themselves.

The consequences of this game with fire can now be seen nearly year-round on television. There is always a fire burning somewhere, and when the forest fire sea-son comes to an end in southern Europe it is just beginning in the southern hemi-sphere, particularly in Australia and Af-rica. Fires burn on more than 300 million hectares worldwide each year. Thousands of people are forced to flee the flames. “We’re seeing a global trend of fires not only covering greater areas in many re-gions, but also having much more seri-ous consequences,” notes fire ecologist

he looks like an arsonist, but he’s actually a firefighter

setting a firebreak.

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Focus Forest Fires


Johann Georg Goldammer, who heads the Global Fire Monitoring Center in Freiburg, Germany, and has been assess-ing forest fire activity throughout the world for many years.

smokejumpers: help from the sky

Unless the fire was caused by lightning, a forest fire always begins as a ground fire. As long as the fire hasn’t yet jumped to the canopy, the fires are easy to extinguish. The firefighters use shovels, fire swatters, chain saws, brushwood branches, and a tool called a Pulaski fire axe that has an axe on one end and a grub hoe on the other. Sometimes the crews even fight the flames with their bare hands.

In the extensive coniferous forests of Russia and the U.S., smokejumpers have proven to be the most effective strike force against fire. They parachute out of airplanes or rappel from helicopters into the threatened woodland and be-gin a battle against the flames that some-times lasts for days. During this entire time, the smokejumpers are completely on their own. This style of firefighting was invented in Russia in the 1920s. The aer-ial fire service still exists today and goes by the name Avialesookhrana, which trans-lates roughly as “Aerial Guarding of the Forests.” The first Avialesookhrana fire-fighters climbed onto the wings of a trans-port plane and parachuted into a fire-en-circled village in 1930.

There are two ways to stop a fire: You can use something like sand to cut off the supply of oxygen to the fire or you can re-move all of the flammable material from the path of the fire. A trench in the soil

measuring no more than 30 centime-ters in width is enough to stop a ground fire. If necessary, the firefighters start a small, controlled backfire to deprive the actual fire of fuel. “This is a good tool for stopping the flames in remote regions or in terrain that is impassable or con-taminated with munitions and thus in-accessible to vehicles,” says Maushake. In Germany, the forest is generally so well-developed because of commercial forestry that the forest roads can serve as such lines of defense. It is a completely differ-ent story in the dense macchia (thicket, shrubland) that is often encountered in southern European countries.

Even today, the methods of the smoke-jumpers hardly differs from the work of the founding fathers. Of course, the para-chutes can be steered more precisely now-adays and there are satellite navigation and radio telephones. But once the strike force has jumped, the firefighters are on their own until the fire is extinguished – in which case they march to the nearest road to be collected – or they are evacuated by helicopter. But at least one thing has changed dramatically: The staff working for the American aerial fire service now have much better protective clothing than their predecessors had.

Learning from the u.s.

The firefighters in the U.S. and the vol-unteers of the German @fire group wear bright yellow uniforms rather than the dark blue ones associated with town and city fire departments. “They don’t heat up as much in the sun,” explains Maush-ake. The protective clothing of the wild-

land firefighters is also less heavily pad-ded than that of structural firefighting units. “Although the other clothing of-fers greater protection, the clothing and equipment worn outside – including the helmet (editor’s note: see also news, page 6) – has to be light because we sometimes have to wear it for days,” says Maushake. “We have to be able to deal with the heat for long periods of time.” (see also page 6)

Another piece of mandatory equipment for his people is a protective tent that folds up into an easy-to-handle package. It is made of a special fire-resistant fabric with a vapor-deposited aluminum layer that re-flects up to 95 percent of incident heat radiation. “It’s like the airbag in a car,” says Maushake. “You’d rather not have to use it, but it’s safer to have one with you.”

So far, this professional firefighter has traveled to the U.S. ten times for ad-ditional training in order to learn from colleagues there how to extinguish forest and brush fires. “The biggest difference between an open-area fire and a struc-tural fire is the dynamics of the fire,” ex-plains Maushake. “There are more vari-ables outside. A cloud in front of the sun can be enough to dampen the fire. Forest fires move. It’s like in chess: You have to think ahead!”

If the flames have already engulfed en-tire trees, there is little that the teams on the ground can do. In such a situation, it’s time to call in the water bomber planes. The CL-415 was developed specifically for this purpose by the Canadian firm Cana-dair. This amphibious aircraft can scoop up an impressive “payload” – 6,000 liters in 12 seconds – while flying low over a

body of water at 120 kilometers an hour. The water is mixed with fire-retardant chemicals before being dropped in or-der to enhance the extinguishing effect. Flying just 30 meters above the burning treetops, the pilots open the four valves of their water tanks, either gradually or all at once so that the mass of water can break through even dense canopy. Ever-green International Airline has a Boeing 747-200 that has been reconfigured as a water bomber. It rents this unique aircraft to governments as needed. The jumbo wa-ter bomber can hold up to 77,600 liters of water and was first deployed in July 2009 to fight forest fires in Spain.

Fire planet Earth

Leaving aside the absolutely destructive power of conflagrations that hardly ever occur without human involvement, na-ture is much less distressed by the flames than we humans believe. Many ecosys-tems actually need the power of flames in order to exist. Computer simulations have shown that in a world without fire there would be one-third more forest, but many biodiverse landscapes such as heaths would be lost forever if fires did not periodically sweep over them.

Ever since plants populated land masses, there have been large-area fires on the planet. The oldest evidence of this includes 420 million-year-old charred re-mains of plants that geologists found hid-den in deep layers of rock. “We live on a fire planet,” says fire ecologist Goldham-mer, who advocates allowing fires more room to breathe. What appears at first glance to be a curious strategy has been

>

once they have jumped, smokejumpers are on their own



Forest Fires Focus

land firefighters is also less heavily pad-ded than that of structural firefighting units. “Although the other clothing of-fers greater protection, the clothing and equipment worn outside – including the helmet (editor’s note: see also news, page 6) – has to be light because we sometimes have to wear it for days,” says Maushake. “We have to be able to deal with the heat for long periods of time.” (see also page 6)

Another piece of mandatory equipment for his people is a protective tent that folds up into an easy-to-handle package. It is made of a special fire-resistant fabric with a vapor-deposited aluminum layer that re-flects up to 95 percent of incident heat radiation. “It’s like the airbag in a car,” says Maushake. “You’d rather not have to use it, but it’s safer to have one with you.”

So far, this professional firefighter has traveled to the U.S. ten times for ad-ditional training in order to learn from colleagues there how to extinguish forest and brush fires. “The biggest difference between an open-area fire and a struc-tural fire is the dynamics of the fire,” ex-plains Maushake. “There are more vari-ables outside. A cloud in front of the sun can be enough to dampen the fire. Forest fires move. It’s like in chess: You have to think ahead!”

If the flames have already engulfed en-tire trees, there is little that the teams on the ground can do. In such a situation, it’s time to call in the water bomber planes. The CL-415 was developed specifically for this purpose by the Canadian firm Cana-dair. This amphibious aircraft can scoop up an impressive “payload” – 6,000 liters in 12 seconds – while flying low over a

body of water at 120 kilometers an hour. The water is mixed with fire-retardant chemicals before being dropped in or-der to enhance the extinguishing effect. Flying just 30 meters above the burning treetops, the pilots open the four valves of their water tanks, either gradually or all at once so that the mass of water can break through even dense canopy. Ever-green International Airline has a Boeing 747-200 that has been reconfigured as a water bomber. It rents this unique aircraft to governments as needed. The jumbo wa-ter bomber can hold up to 77,600 liters of water and was first deployed in July 2009 to fight forest fires in Spain.

Fire planet earth

Leaving aside the absolutely destructive power of conflagrations that hardly ever occur without human involvement, na-ture is much less distressed by the flames than we humans believe. Many ecosys-tems actually need the power of flames in order to exist. Computer simulations have shown that in a world without fire there would be one-third more forest, but many biodiverse landscapes such as heaths would be lost forever if fires did not periodically sweep over them.

Ever since plants populated land masses, there have been large-area fires on the planet. The oldest evidence of this includes 420 million-year-old charred re-mains of plants that geologists found hid-den in deep layers of rock. “We live on a fire planet,” says fire ecologist Goldham-mer, who advocates allowing fires more room to breathe. What appears at first glance to be a curious strategy has been >

Water bombers fight a fire from the air. In mountainous areas like this one, helicopters are also used for this purpose.

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Focus Forest Fires


ing the general population the merits of controlled burning. Held calls this “inte-grated fire management,” and says that only about 10 percent of the associated activities are related to fire suppression; the rest are aimed at prevention. Better a controlled burn

Controlled burning enjoys a long tradi-tion in many parts of Africa. The landown-ers set many small fires that consume the dead plant material while leaving the liv-ing plants undamaged. Such fires are not destructive. These regions look like a checkerboard when seen from the air. Catastrophes are rare in areas where this technique is properly applied.

“The people burn land early in the year when the plants are still green and the air is damp. Under these conditions, the fires go out overnight with no hu-man intervention,” explains Held. He recommends that European fire man-agers adopt a similar strategy: “It’s go-ing to burn anyway, so it’s better to set-tle for a controlled burn that is easier on the vegetation and the soil.” Held con-siders the fighting of fires to be a hope-less undertaking. “Greece has the most aircraft, and still there are massive fires there every two years.”

Things are changing, however. “More and more countries are finding the cour-age to fight fire with fire,” says Held. And he calls on them to show even more cour-age and take new approaches to fire man-agement. “However, it’s difficult to con-vince the authorities that they should start 1,000 little fires around Athens every spring,” he admits. Hanno charisius

october 1825: 160 people, many of them prisoners, die in the massive Miarmichi Fire in the Canadian province of new Brunswick. 16,000 square kilometers of forest are destroyed.

August 1936: the russian lumber town Kursha-2 burns to the ground in a conflagration; 1,200 people die.

August 1975: in a fire on the Lüneburg Heath, 74 square kilometers are destroyed and five firefighters die.

Between 1997 and 1998: 97,000 square kilometers of rain forest burn down in indonesia and release 2.6 giga- tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

July 2005: 130 square kilometers of forest burn down in the spanish province of guadalajara; 11 firefighters die.

July/september 2007: Fires burn throughout greece. More than 3,000 separate fires destroy 2,700 square kilometers of forest and plantations; 84 people die.

February 2009: in the Australian state of victoria, 400 separate fires destroy 4,500 square kilometers of bushland. 173 people perish in the flames, 414 are injured.

August/october 2009: the station Fire rages on the outskirts of Los Angeles. it destroys 89 homes and consumes 650 square kilometers of brush and forest surrounding tujunga Canyon, an important local recreation area and tourist attraction. investigators determine that the fire was started by an arsonist. two firefighters die in the line of duty. Murder charges are filed against the unidentified perpetrator.

catastrophic forest fires

> finding increasing support among wild-land firefighters for a number of years now. In short, they are beginning to fight fire with fire. Their aim is not to extin-guish the flames, but rather to prevent or at least control them.

Fires only become really danger-ous when there is too much flamm able material lying around in the forest. The dead plant material from the pre-vious year remains on the ground, and once the snow has melted and the sun has been shining for two days, material burns like tinder.

Things were different when rural populations still used to gather up even the smallest of twigs to heat home and hearth. Goldammer compares the effect of a controlled low-intensity ground fire in a forest to light thinning by humans. As a result of either, weaker trees disappear, healthy ones remain and young trees can grow because they receive more light on the forest floor. Such fires could prevent the dangerously hot fires that leave noth-ing of the forest behind other than a few charred stumps.

Integrated fire management

“We shouldn’t prevent fires, but rather re-duce their intensity,” says Alexander Held, an internationally recognized fire man-ager at the consulting company Working on Fire in Germany. When he speaks of the “fire industry,” he is also referring to services such as those his company offers to governments or large property own-ers. These include monitoring the land areas, as well as educational campaigns and training programs aimed at teach-

The jump into the (often) unknown: A smokejumper floats

down into the burn area to fight the fire on the ground.

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Forest Fires Focus

ing the general population the merits of controlled burning. Held calls this “inte-grated fire management,” and says that only about 10 percent of the associated activities are related to fire suppression; the rest are aimed at prevention. Better a controlled burn

Controlled burning enjoys a long tradi-tion in many parts of Africa. The landown-ers set many small fires that consume the dead plant material while leaving the liv-ing plants undamaged. Such fires are not destructive. These regions look like a checkerboard when seen from the air. Catastrophes are rare in areas where this technique is properly applied.

“The people burn land early in the year when the plants are still green and the air is damp. Under these conditions, the fires go out overnight with no hu-man intervention,” explains Held. He recommends that European fire man-agers adopt a similar strategy: “It’s go-ing to burn anyway, so it’s better to set-tle for a controlled burn that is easier on the vegetation and the soil.” Held con-siders the fighting of fires to be a hope-less undertaking. “Greece has the most aircraft, and still there are massive fires there every two years.”

Things are changing, however. “More and more countries are finding the cour-age to fight fire with fire,” says Held. And he calls on them to show even more cour-age and take new approaches to fire man-agement. “However, it’s difficult to con-vince the authorities that they should start 1,000 little fires around Athens every spring,” he admits. Hanno charisius

finding increasing support among wild-land firefighters for a number of years now. In short, they are beginning to fight fire with fire. Their aim is not to extin-guish the flames, but rather to prevent or at least control them.

Fires only become really danger-ous when there is too much flamm able material lying around in the forest. The dead plant material from the pre-vious year remains on the ground, and once the snow has melted and the sun has been shining for two days, material burns like tinder.

Things were different when rural populations still used to gather up even the smallest of twigs to heat home and hearth. Goldammer compares the effect of a controlled low-intensity ground fire in a forest to light thinning by humans. As a result of either, weaker trees disappear, healthy ones remain and young trees can grow because they receive more light on the forest floor. Such fires could prevent the dangerously hot fires that leave noth-ing of the forest behind other than a few charred stumps.

Integrated fire management

“We shouldn’t prevent fires, but rather re-duce their intensity,” says Alexander Held, an internationally recognized fire man-ager at the consulting company Working on Fire in Germany. When he speaks of the “fire industry,” he is also referring to services such as those his company offers to governments or large property own-ers. These include monitoring the land areas, as well as educational campaigns and training programs aimed at teach-

“It’s a Lifestyle”JoHn TwIss, 63, is the President of the north American national smokejumper Association. Between 1967 and 1976, he himself jumped out of airplanes over forest fires and often stayed for days until all the flames were extinguished. He lives in Custer, south Dakota.

Do you remember your first parachute jump from an airplane into a burning forest? of course! it was more than 30 years ago. the training had me well prepared, but that’s precisely what makes it exciting: You know exactly what you’re getting yourself into. what does a forest fire sound like?A small fire doesn’t make a lot of noise. A large fire that consumes entire trees can get pretty loud, like a train. when you hear this noise, you know that you’re in trouble and need to get away as fast as you can. what goes through your head when you’re flying to a deployment?if it’s a long flight, you normally sleep and save up your energy. on short trips of up to three hours you chat with your colleagues, check your equipment, and study the map of the drop zone. what’s the first thing that a smokejumper does after landing? if you land in a tree, you have to see that you get down to the ground. the next thing is to look for the package with the tools, food, and drinking water that was dropped right after you. then you put out the fire, pack everything back up and march off in the direction of the agreed pickup point. How long does such a deployment last? You stay until the fire is extinguished or the command post orders you to another location. that can take up to three days. that’s how long the food lasts. And when the food is gone? then you either eat what you can find or nothing at all. Food and water are often dropped from a plane if you’re out there for a longer period of time.That sounds like an occupation full of hardships. the optimal age for a smokejumper used to be under 30. nowadays you meet active jumpers who are over 50. what else has changed? the parachutes are easier to steer nowadays. that makes it easier to steer past boulders and trees. And i’m pleased that smokejumpers are being deployed today for the controlled burn-off of combustible material in areas at risk from forest fires. that will probably happen more frequently in the future. Further information online: www.draeger.com/385/firefighting

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Deep Within the Mountain Safer rooms underground and innovative respiratory protection equipment offer state-of-the-art solutions for mining and tunnel construction. They form the basis of the latest rescue concepts worldwide as emergency plans for mines and construction sites hundreds of meters down grow increasingly stringent.

Intensive operations underground re-quire maximum safety. That applies equally to the Konrad shaft in Salzgit-

ter, Germany, and the Olympic Dam Mine on the other side of the globe in Austra-lia. Yet the two facilities are vastly differ-ent in terms of their use. In Germany, the mine is being converted into a per-manent repository for low- and interme-diate-level radioactive wastes, whereas in Australia’s largest underground mine, new deposits are being prepared for the extraction of ores. What connects the two, on the other hand, is their safety equip-ment, which includes rescue chambers and refuge chambers on a very high level by international comparison.

Reports about mine accidents illus-trate just how important it is to continue to improve underground safety in many countries. And this situation is indeed changing for the better. While mines and transportation tunnels have steadily got-ten bigger in recent years, the safety re-quirements for mining and tunnel con-struction have become more stringent worldwide. “And the lawmakers are im-posing increasingly stringent standards,” says Norbert Poch, Head of the Breathing Air Supply Systems unit at Dräger. Inno-vative protective and rescue equipment for the mining industry was therefore the focus of the International Mines Rescue Conference held in the Czech Republic in fall of 2009 (see also interview, p. 17).

customized rescue concepts

Because of the different conditions un-derground, safe rescue concepts rely on customized solutions. Among their most Konrad shaft or olympic Dam – the risks underground are similar worldwide. the rescue chamber is gastight so that occupants can breathe freely.

this self-contained rescue chamber protects against smoke and particles.

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Mining RepoRt

Deep Within the Mountain Safer rooms underground and innovative respiratory protection equipment offer state-of-the-art solutions for mining and tunnel construction. They form the basis of the latest Rescue concepts worldwide as emergency plans for mines and construction sites hundreds of meters down grow increasingly stringent.

important components are respiratory protection equipment for self-rescue and safer rooms such as rescue chambers and refuge chambers. “The different variants of the two systems are comple-mentary,” says Poch. He also points out that “today’s rescue concepts include a combination of refuge chambers, rescue chambers, and personal respiratory pro-tection equipment.”

escape to the surface

Refuge chambers and rescue chambers offer very good odds of survival, even in the event of explosions, fires, or the re-lease of hazardous gases. Refuge cham-bers are stationary and are generally created by separating a dead-end gallery from the mine using walls and an air-lock. A large number of people can wait in these areas for an extended period of time to be rescued by external rescue crews. Rescue chambers, on the other hand, are usually mobile containers and intended as an intermediate stop during a self-rescue. “Self-rescue by escaping to the surface should be the objective when-ever possible,” says Dietmar Diercks, a product specialist at Dräger.

Innovative respiratory protection technology is showing the way forward here. Dräger’s “Charge Air” (in Austra-lia: “Quick Fill Stations”) is a system with breathing air refilling stations for self-rescue over greater distances. Charge Air is currently used primarily in coal mines where escape from the mine (self-rescue) has absolute priority over refuge chamber concepts, due to the problems of firedamp and fire. Charge >Konrad shaft or olympic Dam – the risks underground are similar worldwide. the rescue chamber is gastight so that occupants can breathe freely.

this self-contained rescue chamber protects against smoke and particles.

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Air makes it possible to rapidly refill compressed air respirators. “A nine-liter cylinder can be refilled from 50 to 300 bars in 45 to 70 seconds without any in-terruption of the breathing air supply,” explains Stefan Reiling of Dräger, who supports the system in Australia. That corresponds to a 60-minute supply of breathing air. Refilling is performed us-ing a purely pneumatically controlled sequential cascade system that makes more efficient use of the available air than direct filling. Standard Charge Air units from Dräger are suitable for fill-ing either 20 or 40 breathing air cylin-ders. Longer evacuation routes are easy to handle with Charge Air than with oxygen self-rescuers, and in addition the breathing air is more pleasant. The Oaky Creek Coal mine in Queens land, Austra-lia, currently has more than 80 systems in use, making it the largest customer for this technology.

The largest active underground mine in Australia is located in the middle of the outback, some 600 kilometers north of Adelaide. “Olympic Dam” is a world unto itself. Several hundred miners are un-der way in its passages every day, fully decked out with respiratory protection masks on their belts and mine lamps on their helmets. New tunnels are opened every day, each one looking exactly like the others. A tangled maze of roads and tunnels several hundred kilometers long runs through the granite.

Up to 36 hours of protection

Dräger will provide the mine with its new refuge chamber, in which up to 100 people can find shelter and safety for up to 36 hours. A slight positive pressure rel-ative to the atmosphere in the mine, an air curtain unit, and an airlock are in-tended to keep hazardous gases out. The regeneration unit is responsible for sep-

> be filled with hazardous gases, and the people in the mine would have to be evac-uated through the Konrad 2 shaft.

In Germany, rescue chambers are also created directly in the mine when the stor-age chambers are constructed, in line with the requirements of the General Mining Ordinance for Underground Opera tions, Open-cast Mining and Salt Mines (ABVO, see box on p. 16). According to the ordi-nance, tunnels that are more than 400 meters long require rescue chambers in cases where there are no additional con-nections to other parts of the mine and where miners could therefore have their escape route cut off by a fire. “Only the miners in the immediate vicinity would flee into these chambers,” explains Ingo Sandmann, who is responsible for the North Region at Dräger in Germany.

Traffic tunnels generate demand

The demand for safety and rescue sys-tems for underground work is steadily increasing. In addition to mines, the construction of long traffic tunnels such as the Gotthard Base Tunnel in the Swiss Alps is generating demand for such systems (see also Dräger Review 96, pages 32 ff.). However, the improve-ment of safety deep inside mountains is not the only field of application for ref-uge and rescue chambers. Similar safety and rescue systems are also used to safe-guard the personnel working on offshore oil platforms. Peter Thomas

Guidelines and ordinancesThroughout the world, there are various guidelines and ordinances that regulate the use of rescue and escape chambers. The applicable regulations in germany are contained in the general Mining Ordinance for underground Operations, Open-cast Mining and Salt Mines (ABvO) and the german Tunneling Committee’s (DAuB) guidelines for Planning and implementing Safety and Protective Concepts at under-ground Construction Sites. The corresponding international regulations include the Final rule (2008) for refuge Alternatives for underground Coal Mines of the uS Mine Safety & Health Administration (MSHA), as well as the Queensland Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health regulation 2001 and the refuge Chambers in underground Metalliferous Mines regulation of the Department of industry and resources of western Australia.

arating carbon dioxide (CO2) from the breathing air in the climate-controlled refuge chamber and adds oxygen accord-ingly. Gas detectors continuously moni-tor the airlock for hazardous gases in the airlock and also monitor the concentra-tions of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and car-bon monoxide in the refuge chamber.

A refuge chamber will also be among the safety features of the Konrad shaft, where the extraction of ore was discon-tinued back in 1976. More than three de-cades later, work is currently under way to upgrade the mine in Salzgitter for its future role as a final repository for ra-dioactive wastes that develop insignifi-cant amounts of heat. Among the first steps in the conversion process is the in-stallation of rescue chambers and also a refuge chamber. These chambers serve as places to which miners can retreat, primarily during the conversion phase. “The risks during tunneling and backfill-ing are hardly any different from those you find in an active ore mine,” says Dr. Thorsten Rebehn from the German Com-pany for the Construction and Operation of Waste Respositories (DBE). The con-version phase is scheduled to last from 2010 to 2014.

The refuge chamber, which can hold up to 150 people, was designed to be used in a worst-case scenario involving a fire in the Konrad 1 shaft, which was sunk back in 1957. This is the “downcast shaft,” through which fresh air flows into the mine, and that is the reason it is the pre-ferred escape route in case of an evacua-tion. However, if a fire was to break out in the downcast shaft, the entire mine could

Rescue chambers can be flexibly configured and can provide protection for up to 20 people for several days.

Charge air enables the rapid refilling of compressed air respirators for improved safety.

Further information online, including: Product information

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Mining RepoRt

be filled with hazardous gases, and the people in the mine would have to be evac-uated through the Konrad 2 shaft.

In Germany, rescue chambers are also created directly in the mine when the stor-age chambers are constructed, in line with the requirements of the General Mining Ordinance for Underground Opera tions, Open-cast Mining and Salt Mines (ABVO, see box on p. 16). According to the ordi-nance, tunnels that are more than 400 meters long require rescue chambers in cases where there are no additional con-nections to other parts of the mine and where miners could therefore have their escape route cut off by a fire. “Only the miners in the immediate vicinity would flee into these chambers,” explains Ingo Sandmann, who is responsible for the North Region at Dräger in Germany.

traffic tunnels generate demand

The demand for safety and rescue sys-tems for underground work is steadily increasing. In addition to mines, the construction of long traffic tunnels such as the Gotthard Base Tunnel in the Swiss Alps is generating demand for such systems (see also Dräger Review 96, pages 32 ff.). However, the improve-ment of safety deep inside mountains is not the only field of application for ref-uge and rescue chambers. Similar safety and rescue systems are also used to safe-guard the personnel working on offshore oil platforms. peter thomas

arating carbon dioxide (CO2) from the breathing air in the climate-controlled refuge chamber and adds oxygen accord-ingly. Gas detectors continuously moni-tor the airlock for hazardous gases in the airlock and also monitor the concentra-tions of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and car-bon monoxide in the refuge chamber.

A refuge chamber will also be among the safety features of the Konrad shaft, where the extraction of ore was discon-tinued back in 1976. More than three de-cades later, work is currently under way to upgrade the mine in Salzgitter for its future role as a final repository for ra-dioactive wastes that develop insignifi-cant amounts of heat. Among the first steps in the conversion process is the in-stallation of rescue chambers and also a refuge chamber. These chambers serve as places to which miners can retreat, primarily during the conversion phase. “The risks during tunneling and backfill-ing are hardly any different from those you find in an active ore mine,” says Dr. Thorsten Rebehn from the German Com-pany for the Construction and Operation of Waste Respositories (DBE). The con-version phase is scheduled to last from 2010 to 2014.

The refuge chamber, which can hold up to 150 people, was designed to be used in a worst-case scenario involving a fire in the Konrad 1 shaft, which was sunk back in 1957. This is the “downcast shaft,” through which fresh air flows into the mine, and that is the reason it is the pre-ferred escape route in case of an evacua-tion. However, if a fire was to break out in the downcast shaft, the entire mine could

Charge air enables the rapid refilling of compressed air respirators for improved safety.

Mine Rescue in the Czech Republicváclav Pošta is director of the Central Mine rescue Station in the Czech republic. The mines there have been using equipment from Dräger for about 100 years.

What are you most proud of when you look back on your many years of expe-rience as a leader of the Czech mine rescue service?Mostly of the fact that during the course of 31 years – in other words, the period when i directly supervised accident control – not a single life was lost among the mine rescue personnel.What were the most important developments for mine safety in the Czech Republic during the last ten years?First and foremost, we’ve invested in training and equipment for the personnel. in the last two years alone, about 20 million euros have been spent on shoes, work clothing with reflectors, oxygen self-rescuers, mine lamps, and gas sensors with logging features. in parallel with this, OKD has continued to bring more uniformity to its equipment. For example, every miner works with the same oxygen self-rescuer and gas sensor. And during the last two years, OKD has invested over 330 million more euros in innovations associated with extraction and driving technology. That helps increase safety too.How is mine rescue service organized for the various oKD mines? in addition to the Central Mine rescue Station, there are seven other mine rescue stations. These sites have almost 800 voluntary and professional mine rescue workers who see to the safety of miners and provide rescue services.Are you only responsible for safety and rescue services in the mines?Oh, no. Mining is the focus of our work, of course. From the four mines currently active, OKD extracts about 13 million tones of coal per year. But our work extends beyond that. Mine rescue services also play a part in construction projects where mining methods are used, such as when tunnels or underground utility lines are built. we also have agree-ments with the fire department and the integrated rescue System of the Czech republic for civil deployments: in the event of a fire in a high-rise building, for example, we can provide 300 self-rescuers for the evacuation of victims. Was the 4th International Mines Rescue Conference (IMRC), which took place in the Czech Republic in the fall of 2009, a flagship project for you? Definitely. Alongside the development of the mine rescue exhibition in Ostrava, the conference of the international Mines rescue Body and the 4th international Mines rescue Conference in 2009 were outstanding events that also help raise awareness of our work among the general public.the entire interview can be downloaded from the Internet.

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diving,” says Stefan Orth. “It’s also a form of meditation for many people.” For spe-cial operations divers, however, there’s no time to think about meditation and peace. They must be ready to perform their mis-sion regardless of the current or whether the water is ice-cold or cloudy. “Take a lamp with you, then you won’t be alone,” goes a popular saying in diving circles. But professional divers in police and special op-erations forces often can’t even do that.

Bubble-free Divingeurope’s largest indoor diving facility, which holds three million liters of water, is located in the town of Siegburg near Cologne. it offers ideal conditions for divers – and the Dräger LAr 5000.

Given all this, it’s somewhat unusual to test diving equipment under such optimal con-ditions at an indoor diving center. Never-theless, special operations divers from various NATO countries and special operations units had the opportunity in early March to try out Dräger diving equipment under “laboratory conditions.” Whereas sport divers go down with an open diving system and a cylinder of compressed air, special operations divers often need an entirely different set of equipment.

At the heart of this equipment is a closed (CCR) or semi-closed (SCR) re-breather such as the Dräger LAR 5000. Closed circuit rebreathers produce no bubbles during exhalation – a property that special operations divers appreciate. With a closed circuit system, the exhaled air is

of four, five, and seven meters. The dive duration at various depths can be mea-sured with the help of the dive computer to enable multilevel diving.

Into the blue depths

The only thing below the ring-shaped plat-form seven meters below the surface of the water is the entrance to the diving cra-ter, where the descent into the dark blue depths begins. “You can find peace while

Indoor diving facilities are all the rage. The water at the facility in Siegburg, Germany, is 20 meters deep and a

pleasantly warm 26 degrees Celsius. “In the spring, sport divers practice for the upcoming season and check their equipment,” notes Stefan Orth, a div-ing instructor at the Dive4Life facility. The gigantic diving tank contains an un-derwater landscape just waiting to be explored. Platforms are located at depths

Practicing for the real dive: Closed circuit

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Div ing RepoRt

diving,” says Stefan Orth. “It’s also a form of meditation for many people.” For spe-cial operations divers, however, there’s no time to think about meditation and peace. They must be ready to perform their mis-sion regardless of the current or whether the water is ice-cold or cloudy. “Take a lamp with you, then you won’t be alone,” goes a popular saying in diving circles. But professional divers in police and special op-erations forces often can’t even do that.

Bubble-free Divingeurope’s largest indoor diving facility, which holds three million liters of water, is located in the town of Siegburg near Cologne. it offers ideal conditions for divers – and the DRägeR LAR 5000.

Given all this, it’s somewhat unusual to test diving equipment under such optimal con-ditions at an indoor diving center. Never-theless, special operations divers from various NATO countries and special operations units had the opportunity in early March to try out Dräger diving equipment under “laboratory conditions.” Whereas sport divers go down with an open diving system and a cylinder of compressed air, special operations divers often need an entirely different set of equipment.

At the heart of this equipment is a closed (CCR) or semi-closed (SCR) re-breather such as the Dräger LAR 5000. Closed circuit rebreathers produce no bubbles during exhalation – a property that special operations divers appreciate. With a closed circuit system, the exhaled air is

passed through a sodalime cartridge that absorbs the exhaled CO2. The residual oxy-gen in the exhaled air is mixed with fresh breathing gas and reinhaled. This saves breathing gas and allows the diving ap-paratus and breathing gas cylinders to be smaller and lighter. “Weighing between 15 and 17 kilograms, the LAR 5000 is no-ticeably lighter than a compressed air div-ing apparatus,” explains Dräger portfolio manager Oliver Schirk. “In addition, the breathing gas is significantly warmer with a closed circuit rebreather, thus the tem-perature loss in the body is lower.” The use of oxygen or Nitrox reduces the per-centage of nitrogen in the breathing gas. This permits longer dive times and mini-mizes the risk of a nitrogen-narcosis.

Flexibility is the key

With a closed circuit rebreather such as the LAR 5000, divers can descend to a depth of roughly ten meters with pure oxygen as the breathing gas. Mixed gases such as Nitrox, a breathing air mixture with a higher oxygen percentage, are used for greater depths. Using Nitrox with an oxygen content of 60 percent, divers reach depths of 24 meters and can return to the surface more quickly – even after extended dive times because the decompression phases are shortened. The flexibility of the equipment is the key difference for spe-cial operations forces working under wa-ter. “There are operations for which the divers have to exit a submarine. The exit depth is 20 meters so that the submarine remains invisible. That’s too deep for pure oxygen,” explains Oliver Schirk. The divers therefore use Nitrox to exit the submarine

and work with a semi-closed system. A por-tion of the exhaled air is released into the environment, producing a relatively small amount of bubbles. “A transition from Ni-trox to oxygen in a closed, completely bub-ble-free mode takes place from a depth of ten meters,” Oliver Schirk adds.

Such rebreather systems are still not very widespread among fire department and other civil divers. The Dräger expert feels that the technology still has poten-tial in this area, however. “Following Hur-ricane Katrina, the fire department div-ers in New Orleans learned that, despite a full-face mask, there are hygienic prob-lems associated with the bubble curtain in the mask area,” says Oliver Schirk. It is impossible to completely prevent small amounts of water from penetrating the mask. That’s not a pleasant thought for divers working in water containing ani-mal carcasses and fecal matter.

A diver from the New York City Police Department probably wished he had a LAR 5000 following the emergency land-ing of an Airbus A-320 in the Hudson River in January 2009. Wearing a con-ventional compressed air diving appara-tus, he first worked on the water’s sur-face to help stricken passengers in the cold water. Later he was supposed to check all the rows of seats in the float-ing US Airways plane. If the aircraft had sunk, he probably would not have had enough oxygen in the cylinders for the ascent. With an open SCUBA diving sys-tem there is enough air for roughly one hour. But a closed circuit system such as the LAR 5000 contains enough oxygen for up to four hours. Mario gongolsky

Sunbeams fall through the clear water of

the diving tower as in a cathedral.

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Afire has broken out in a single-family home. To combat it, an at-tack squad wearing respiratory

protection advances into the rooms of the building. The two young firefighters bring a size C nozzle with three lengths of hose and a hollow stream nozzle tip into position. Smoke billows through the corridor. One of the men takes the nozzle and squats down on the right side of the door next to the hinges while the other stands in front of the door handle, takes off his glove and tests the temperature of the door from bottom to top with the back of his hand. It is hot.

Brief eye contact and the two fire-fighters know what they have to do. A se-curing strap is placed around the door handle; they are ready to go into action on the count of three. The man closest to the door handle does the counting and then pushes the door open. His col-league with the hose fires three blasts of water into the blazing room. The secur-ing strap pulls the door back closed. The procedure is repeated twice to reduce the temperature in the burning room. The next step is to bring the fire under control. The door opens one last time. A shot of water is aimed to the right and to the left, then water is sprayed through-out the room in the form of a figure of eight lying on its side.

It’s only now that the two men dare to enter the burning bedroom. The man operating the nozzle kneels down low and fires a shot of water straight up into the air. The water rains down on his helmet – a test of the air temperature. If the water had not come back down, this The simulation is so realistic that the firefighters at times feel as if they were on a live call.

The Push-button InfernoMost firefighters are familiar with live fire training in burn containers or burn buildings. But what the firefighter academy in vire in the northwestern French department of Calvados has to offer isn’t a building, it’s an entire city – and the largesT fIre sImulaTIon facIlITy in the world.

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F ire Simulation RepoRt

Afire has broken out in a single-family home. To combat it, an at-tack squad wearing respiratory

protection advances into the rooms of the building. The two young firefighters bring a size C nozzle with three lengths of hose and a hollow stream nozzle tip into position. Smoke billows through the corridor. One of the men takes the nozzle and squats down on the right side of the door next to the hinges while the other stands in front of the door handle, takes off his glove and tests the temperature of the door from bottom to top with the back of his hand. It is hot.

Brief eye contact and the two fire-fighters know what they have to do. A se-curing strap is placed around the door handle; they are ready to go into action on the count of three. The man closest to the door handle does the counting and then pushes the door open. His col-league with the hose fires three blasts of water into the blazing room. The secur-ing strap pulls the door back closed. The procedure is repeated twice to reduce the temperature in the burning room. The next step is to bring the fire under control. The door opens one last time. A shot of water is aimed to the right and to the left, then water is sprayed through-out the room in the form of a figure of eight lying on its side.

It’s only now that the two men dare to enter the burning bedroom. The man operating the nozzle kneels down low and fires a shot of water straight up into the air. The water rains down on his helmet – a test of the air temperature. If the water had not come back down, this

would have meant that it had evaporated due to the high temperature. And that would have been dangerous. The burn-ing bed is dealt with first, and the fire it-self has been extinguished a short time later. “Great, that looked really good!” calls a voice.

Joël Bucher of Dräger France is standing in the corridor holding a re-mote control in his hand. That puts him in a position of control and ultimately decides whether the fire will be suc-cessfully extinguished and if complica-tions will arise. If the room had not been cooled down first and if the air tempera-ture had not been checked, a simulated flashover could also have been activated at the push of a button. In reality, a flash-over is the nearly simultaneous ignition of flammable gases (pyrolysis gases) un-der the ceiling. “That is something you never want to see in reality,” says one of the two firefighters. To date, both of them have tested all of the 32 fire loca-tions at this fire simulation facility.

Fire – from basement to roof

The engineers from Dräger in Lübeck, Germany, spent several months working in close collaboration with the customer to plan the facility as realistically as pos-sible down to the last detail. One of the highlights is the six-story high-rise apart-ment building. “Just about everything can burn there, from the basement to the roof,” the second firefighter assures us. Just yesterday the two firefighters worked their way up to the third floor. This building can simulate the entire spectrum of structured fires. The “hotel

scenario” enables rescue crews and fire-fighters to train together, practicing such things as combined exterior and interior attacks, going into action for example on an aerial ladder.

On the fourth floor, a French Dräger technician is preparing the next train-ing situation, in which the grease in a deep fryer is burning in a kitchen. The man points to the exhaust hood. “That can burn, too. It ignites passively if it’s exposed long enough to the flames.” It is very dark in the room. The man uses his headlamp to improve the sparse light-ing. “Look here,” he says as he points to a particular complication. The cover of the deep fryer is caught on the piece of steel representing the mounting for the neon tube and cannot be closed. The fast-est and safest way to extinguish a grease fire is thus not an option.

When the two firefighters enter the kitchen, the deep fryer and the exhaust hood aren’t the only things burning. The grease has overflowed and the fire is spreading rapidly across the kitchen floor. The air is scorchingly hot and damp. “The moisture is going to be a problem,” says one of the firefighters. “One liter of extinguishing water gen-erates 1,700 liters of water vapor. If the turnout gear soaks through, it no longer offers adequate protection against the 100 degree Celsius air that simply pen-etrates it.”

Safe at all times

The two men were never in any actual danger, however. “Safety is a key feature during all Dräger fire simulations. Not >the simulation is so realistic that the firefighters at times feel as if they were on a live call.

only realistic training prepares you for the genu-

ine experience. that’s why the

cafeteria looks as if you could sit down and order a

café au lait – but fire in the bar

counter is only the push of the

button away.

the push-button Infernomost firefighters are familiar with live fire training in burn containers or burn buildings. But what the firefighter academy in vire in the northwestern French department of Calvados has to offer isn’t a building, it’s an entire city – and the laRgeSt FIRe SImulatIon FacIlIty in the world.

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RepoRt Fire Simulation


bang and a loud whistling sound, and a nearly transparent jet of flame shoots with a deafening noise roughly four meters into the air. The flange and surface fire at a hazardous goods truck is no less impressive. Liquid escapes from a silo flange. “Whoosh!” and suddenly an area of nine square meters is in flames.

Hot, hot, hot

Simulating a liquid fire in a gas simulation is a tricky undertaking. However, Dräger has lots of experience here. For example, in Thailand there is an aircraft fire simulation with a spill fire covering 750 square meters. When the firefighters conducted their first training session there and the largearea fire suddenly ignit ed, the men felt like dropping everything and running away as fast as they could. The exterior live fire training systems are made of steel and are cooled with water from a sprinkler system to extend the service life of the installations. Even the steel structures would otherwise quickly become brittle at the high tempera tures reached by the fire.

The two firefighters are really exhausted after a day of training in Vire. In the course of the day, the young men have drunk more than five liters of water. In retrospect, the flashover made the greatest impression. “I didn’t even see it at first because of the restricted field of view you have when wearing the protective equipment” one of them says. But then there was the unimaginable heat. “I didn’t know that I could make myself that small,” he says. “This special effect can be practiced here at the

Liquid escapes from a silo flange – and suddenly an area of nine square meters is in flames

Control room: the heat is on at the push of a button. And the top priority is safety.

only do we have the trainer with the remote control; an easily accessible emergency stop button is also located down low on the door frame in each burn room,” says Bucher reassuringly. All fire simulations are conduced with approximately 90 percent propane gas. “It burns cleanly, makes an impressive flame and generates a lot of heat,” he says.

The entire facility is monitored from the control room on the ground floor, where the individual burn scenarios are also activated. The trainer starts the ignition of the respective fire location via a control panel satellite near the burn room. The simulation is then started via the remote control. The temperature at a height of one meter is limited to 250 degrees Celsius in all burn rooms. In addition, there are sensors on the ceiling that limit the electronically controlled flashover to 650 degrees Celsius. Not even DIN 14097 specifies such high standards, but they further enhance the safety of the system. Sensors measure the gas concentration near the floor for added safety. If a critical value is exceeded here, the fire and the system are shut down immediately. At the same time, the emergency lights come on and the powerful smoke extraction system ventilates the room at an overall rate of up to 71,000 cubic meters per hour.

Simulating liquid fires with gas

There are also a number of training situations for the outdoor area, such as a fire in a gas cylinder storage scenario. If the gas cylinders lying around are not cooled down quickly, there is a violent

>

Fire and smoke: In Vire, France, firefighters prepare for a real emergency.

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bang and a loud whistling sound, and a nearly transparent jet of flame shoots with a deafening noise roughly four meters into the air. The flange and surface fire at a hazardous goods truck is no less impressive. Liquid escapes from a silo flange. “Whoosh!” and suddenly an area of nine square meters is in flames.

Hot, hot, hot

Simulating a liquid fire in a gas simulation is a tricky undertaking. However, Dräger has lots of experience here. For example, in Thailand there is an aircraft fire simulation with a spill fire covering 750 square meters. When the firefighters conducted their first training session there and the largearea fire suddenly ignit ed, the men felt like dropping everything and running away as fast as they could. The exterior live fire training systems are made of steel and are cooled with water from a sprinkler system to extend the service life of the installations. Even the steel structures would otherwise quickly become brittle at the high tempera tures reached by the fire.

The two firefighters are really exhausted after a day of training in Vire. In the course of the day, the young men have drunk more than five liters of water. In retrospect, the flashover made the greatest impression. “I didn’t even see it at first because of the restricted field of view you have when wearing the protective equipment” one of them says. But then there was the unimaginable heat. “I didn’t know that I could make myself that small,” he says. “This special effect can be practiced here at the

École des Sapeurs-Pompiers Département 14Located on 25 hectares of grounds just outside the city of vire in normandy, France, is the firefighting academy of the department of Calvados, which features Dräger fire simulation facilities, a road for simulating traffic accidents, training rooms, and accommodations. each day, firefighters practice extinguishing fires and rescue and recovery maneuvers. Located on the grounds is a fire station with several tanker trucks, an aerial ladder and a rescue truck.

A small assortment of junked compact cars is available for practicing rescuing people from vehicles. François Fontaine, director of the consortium Défense & Sécurité, is convinced of the concept of the facility: “we have established optimal training conditions here,” he says. “The facility primarily serves the firefighters from Department 14, but guests from neighboring departments have also trained here before. in 2009 we conducted 5,000 person-days of training, and we’re expanding this to 7,000 person-days in 2010.” Fontaine emphasizes that the training facility is also available to privately organized company fire departments.

The roughly €22 million that it cost to build the firefighting academy was provided by private investors.

Not a department store on the outskirts of town, but a training facility in Vire.

push of a button. Temperatures near the ceiling can reach up to 600 degrees Celsius,” explains Bucher. His headlamp illuminates the barely noticeable system of gas nozzles that is responsible for this effect. “With this sort of equipment, we can make sure that things really heat up in here,” he says.

An MCI in the supermarket

But that’s not all that the Vire facility has to offer. Next to the apartment building, it also boasts a shopping center that includes a complete passage with a drugstore, a laundry, a bistro, and a supermarket with rows of shelves. The

fire in the supermarket offers endless possibilities when it comes to demonstrating the extent of damage associated with a “Mass Casualty Incident” (MCI). The use of a thermal imaging camera to search for hot spots or missing persons is just one of the things that can be trained here. The shopping center has been recreated with great attention to detail, by the way. There’s even a condom machine on the outside wall of the drugstore. Mario Gongolsky

only do we have the trainer with the remote control; an easily accessible emergency stop button is also located down low on the door frame in each burn room,” says Bucher reassuringly. All fire simulations are conduced with approximately 90 percent propane gas. “It burns cleanly, makes an impressive flame and generates a lot of heat,” he says.

The entire facility is monitored from the control room on the ground floor, where the individual burn scenarios are also activated. The trainer starts the ignition of the respective fire location via a control panel satellite near the burn room. The simulation is then started via the remote control. The temperature at a height of one meter is limited to 250 degrees Celsius in all burn rooms. In addition, there are sensors on the ceiling that limit the electronically controlled flashover to 650 degrees Celsius. Not even DIN 14097 specifies such high standards, but they further enhance the safety of the system. Sensors measure the gas concentration near the floor for added safety. If a critical value is exceeded here, the fire and the system are shut down immediately. At the same time, the emergency lights come on and the powerful smoke extraction system ventilates the room at an overall rate of up to 71,000 cubic meters per hour.

Simulating liquid fires with gas

There are also a number of training situations for the outdoor area, such as a fire in a gas cylinder storage scenario. If the gas cylinders lying around are not cooled down quickly, there is a violent

Further information online, including: Fire locations in vire

www.draeger.com/385/training

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If you take the time to look at the huge number of flammable gases and va-pors we are familiar with, you will see

that very few of these substances are in-organic in origin. The most common of these are hydrogen, ammonia, carbon monoxide, carbon disulfide, hydrogen cy-anide, as well as the hydrides as a class, which also includes hydrogen sulfide.

All other flammable gases and va-pors, including the flammable solvents mentioned in Dräger Review 98, are or-ganic substances. Their molecules al-ways contain carbon-hydrogen bonds, which is why they are also known as hy-drocarbons. And it is precisely these car-bon-hydrogen bonds which, because of their particular infrared optical proper-ties, provide the basis for the infrared de-tection of flammable gases.

The infrared measuring principle

The measuring principle is simple. Cer-tain substances absorb particular wave-lengths when exposed to white light and thereby take on a color which is percep-tible to us in the transmitted light. The same principle applies to the near infra-red range. Gas molecules likewise absorb certain wavelengths of the incident in-frared radiation.

When the intensity of the radiation in this wavelength range is measured, it can be seen that the intensity dimin-ishes in relation to the gas concentra-tion: the greater the number of gas mol-ecules present, the “darker” the received infrared radiation (IR) is. And light and dark can be converted into an electri-cal signal using an IR detector. Without

going any deeper into the details of the physics involved, it is possible to estab-lish the following laws:u The IR absorption depends on the mo-lecular structure; there are strongly and weakly absorbing gases and vapors.u The IR absorption depends on the opti-cal path – the longer the route traveled by the IR, the greater the absorption (Lam-bert’s Law).u The IR absorption depends on the number of absorbing molecules along this path, so it is related to the concen-tration of the gas (Beer’s Law).

This means that the concentration of a given gas can be measured by us-ing an IR radiation source whose inten-sity is measured after the radiation has passed through a gas-filled volume with a known absorption path. This is first done using only pure air (oxygen and nitrogen do not absorb any IR) and then with the gas-air mixture to be measured. The ab-sorption of the gas is determined by cal-culating the difference in these values. This difference is a measure of the gas concentration.

That, at least, is the theory. A prac-tical application looks somewhat dif-ferent. Unlike IR analysis equipment, the IR measuring devices associated with stationary gas detection technol-ogy are field instruments that ensure re liable concentration measurements over long periods without maintenance or service.

What’s more, they do so continu-ously, sometimes in very adverse environ-ments. In field instruments of this kind, the IR radiation intensity in air is deter-

Infrared Measurement of Gases in the first and second parts of this series, we looked at safety aspects related to the detection of flammable liquids and explained the thermocatalytic measurement technique in detail (Dräger review 98, 99). This final section is devoted to a method of measurement that is based on the infrared absorption of many gases and vapors and is widely viewed as a TechnoloGy of The fuTure.

one of the harshest workplaces in the world: reliable warning of dangerous gases is vital on a drilling platform.

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explosion protection Background

If you take the time to look at the huge number of flammable gases and va-pors we are familiar with, you will see

that very few of these substances are in-organic in origin. The most common of these are hydrogen, ammonia, carbon monoxide, carbon disulfide, hydrogen cy-anide, as well as the hydrides as a class, which also includes hydrogen sulfide.

All other flammable gases and va-pors, including the flammable solvents mentioned in Dräger Review 98, are or-ganic substances. Their molecules al-ways contain carbon-hydrogen bonds, which is why they are also known as hy-drocarbons. And it is precisely these car-bon-hydrogen bonds which, because of their particular infrared optical proper-ties, provide the basis for the infrared de-tection of flammable gases.

The infrared measuring principle

The measuring principle is simple. Cer-tain substances absorb particular wave-lengths when exposed to white light and thereby take on a color which is percep-tible to us in the transmitted light. The same principle applies to the near infra-red range. Gas molecules likewise absorb certain wavelengths of the incident in-frared radiation.

When the intensity of the radiation in this wavelength range is measured, it can be seen that the intensity dimin-ishes in relation to the gas concentra-tion: the greater the number of gas mol-ecules present, the “darker” the received infrared radiation (IR) is. And light and dark can be converted into an electri-cal signal using an IR detector. Without

going any deeper into the details of the physics involved, it is possible to estab-lish the following laws:u The IR absorption depends on the mo-lecular structure; there are strongly and weakly absorbing gases and vapors.u The IR absorption depends on the opti-cal path – the longer the route traveled by the IR, the greater the absorption (Lam-bert’s Law).u The IR absorption depends on the number of absorbing molecules along this path, so it is related to the concen-tration of the gas (Beer’s Law).

This means that the concentration of a given gas can be measured by us-ing an IR radiation source whose inten-sity is measured after the radiation has passed through a gas-filled volume with a known absorption path. This is first done using only pure air (oxygen and nitrogen do not absorb any IR) and then with the gas-air mixture to be measured. The ab-sorption of the gas is determined by cal-culating the difference in these values. This difference is a measure of the gas concentration.

That, at least, is the theory. A prac-tical application looks somewhat dif-ferent. Unlike IR analysis equipment, the IR measuring devices associated with stationary gas detection technol-ogy are field instruments that ensure re liable concentration measurements over long periods without maintenance or service.

What’s more, they do so continu-ously, sometimes in very adverse environ-ments. In field instruments of this kind, the IR radiation intensity in air is deter-

mined only once (zero point calibration) and saved as a reference value.

The sensitivity calibration is accom-plished by a similar method. The mea-surement volume is filled with the sam-ple gas, and the measured IR radiation intensity is saved as a reference value for the sensitivity. The rest is hardware and software. Any decrease in radiation intensity measured by an IR detector is subsequently compared with character-istic curves or calculated numerical val-ues stored in the measuring instrument and converted into a gas concentration.

compensation and optimization

There is, however, a small problem. A de-cline in the radiation intensity isn’t nec-

Infrared Measurement of gases in the first and second parts of this series, we looked at safety aspects related to the detection of flammable liquids and explained the thermocatalytic measurement technique in detail (Dräger review 98, 99). this final section is devoted to a method of measurement that is based on the infrared absorption of many gases and vapors and is widely viewed as a Technology of The fuTure.

reliabilitystationary gas detection systems are automatic machines. they are operated con tinuously and are left to themselves for long periods of time. one must therefore ensure that the required safety function is, in fact, triggered in the event of a dangerous gas concentration and is not impeded by an unnoticed fault. From the point of view of safety engineering, detectable faults are not problematic, because they can always guide the monitored system to a safe state. in the context of a failure analysis, engineers therefore determine the average probability that a non-detectable fault will occur in a system within the inspection interval (normally a year). the ratio of the failure rates resulting from non-detectable faults in relation to all other faults also plays a major role in assessing reliability. For systems with a safety function in accor-dance with safety integrity level 2 (sil2), this ratio must be under 10 percent.

to not only largely rule out hardware faults but also software errors, the entire development of such a device must be continually monitored by an independent inspecting organization according to the specifications detailed in the standard en 61508. to date, only a few gas detection instruments in the world have been certified as conforming to the standards of reliability specified in en 61508. the Dräger pir 7000 is one of them.

Standards of reliability: The german Technical

Inspectorate TÜV certifies that the standards were

applied during the develop-ment of the dräger PIr 7000.

essarily due to the presence of a gas. Sig-nals of this kind that are not caused by gases can be compensated for using the double-beam technique. Here, the IR ra-diation is divided into two wavelength ranges by a beam splitter. These are cho-sen in such a way that the gases in ques-tion only absorb radiation in one of the ranges. If, however, the IR detectors al-located to both wavelength ranges simul-taneously detect a decrease in intensity, this cannot be caused by one or more of these gases but only by contamination, or by a decrease in the intensity of the radi-ation source. The circuitry that performs the analysis therefore takes the quotient of the two signals so that influences of that kind are simply canceled out. >



ment quality can be achieved for certain gases and vapors.u As a purely physics-based measure-ment technique, the measurement can be made without the presence of oxygen. As a consequence, inerted atmospheres can also be monitored. For certain gases, such as methane, concentration mea-surements of up to 100 percent by vol-ume are possible. u The measurement signal is fail-safe, because a failure of the radiation source or contamination of the optics exceed-ing a predefined tolerance (in general, the “non-ready status of the measuring instrument”) can be quickly detected through appropriate electronic means. This increases reliability (“Safety Integ-rity”; see Dräger Review 93), as the prob-ability of undetected failures is substan-tially reduced (see box).

Unfortunately, however, there is no rule of thumb, and sensitivities cannot be predicted for substances not yet mea-

sured. The IR spectra of such substances can, at best, be used to make qualitative judgments. An IR measuring instrument can only be characterized metrologically by performing measurements with de-fined concentrations of these substances. At the Dräger applications lab, measure-ment data of this kind has been obtained for well over a hundred different gases and vapors. And, of course, this fund of metrological experience grows with ev-ery new request and measurement.

Various measuring wavelengths

If, for example, the objective is to detect many different vapors in a facility where solvents are stored, it is very important to know what substances are involved and how the intended IR measuring de-vice will react. The reason is simple: As a rule, whenever a whole group of dif-ferent substances is involved, the mea-suring instrument must be calibrated to handle the substance to which it reacts

with the least sensitivity. As a result, this substance moves to the 45° line in the diagram of characteristic curves, and all the other characteristic lines lie above it. In an IR measuring instrument, how-ever, the resulting sensitivity spread can be considerably greater than in a cata-lytic bead sensor (see diagram). In fact, it can be so great that an alarm thresh-old of 20 percent of the lower explosive limit (LEL) can be exceeded for what are actually much smaller concentrations.

Depending on the specific applica-tion, one should therefore use IR mea-suring systems whose measured wave-length differs in the infrared range. The median wavelength of type 334, for ex-ample, is 3.34 micrometers; that of type 340 is 3.4 micrometers. The measure-ment sensitivities of these two types are very different – there are even substances that can only be detected by one of the two types. For example, only type 334 can detect ethene, butadiene, and benzene or styrene vapors, while only type 340 can detect cyclohexane vapor.

Larger molecules

One would actually suppose that the IR absorption increases with the number of carbon-hydrogen bonds in a molecule. That is true to a certain extent. Measur-ing instruments designed to detect flam-mable gases and vapors are scaled in % LEL, and the LEL itself falls as the mol-ecule size increases. In other words, this supposition is only partially correct. But IR measuring instruments can at least detect substances which, in the case of a catalytic bead sensor, would exhibit

InfraredThe wavelength of viwsible light ranges from around 0.4 (blue) to 0.8 micrometers (red). The LeDs in the remote controls of consumer electronics devices emit radiation of an only slightly longer wavelength – about 0.9 to 1 micrometer – which is already invisible, however. The wavelength range of interest for gas-measurement technology is almost four times as long, at around 3.3 to 3.5 micrometers. For these wavelengths, it is still (just) possible to use conventional radiation sources (incandescent bulbs), whereas the breath alcohol measurement techniques in the range of 10 micrometers have to use special sources. As infrared measurement technology obeys the laws of optics, one often hears of “dirty optics,” mirrors and ir optical mea-suring devices.

With the “four-beam method,” it is even possible to compensate for a decrease in the sensitivity of the two IR detectors as a result of age.

In combination with non-imaging optics and heated reflectors, modern IR measuring instruments like the Dräger PIR 7000 are equipped with many fea-tures to ensure a stable measurement signal over long periods. They also detect a large number of different substances, whose data is stored in a small “gas li-brary” database inside the device. Sim-ply switching to the specified settings for a gas in the library will both linearize the relevant characteristic curves and opti-mize the measuring features of the IR measuring instrument for this substance in many respects.

Application

The infrared measurement technique has advantages over the method based on the heat effect:u The atmosphere to be monitored, which might well contain corrosive components, has no direct contact with the sensitive IR detectors. To ensure this is the case, the latter are separated from the gas-filled measurement chamber, the “cuvette,” by an IR-transparent window. In particular, the IR measurement technique does not suffer from sensor poisoning either, which means that maintenance and calibration intervals can be extended to a year, based on prior experience.u When the cuvette length – in other words, the absorption path – is appro-priate, full-scale readings of less than 1,000 ppm with outstanding measure-

Catalytic bead and infrared complement one another

Stainless steel nose: at left is the optical system of the IR trans mitter Dräger PIR 7000 (right), which is equipped with a splashguard when in use.

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explosion protection Background

sured. The IR spectra of such substances can, at best, be used to make qualitative judgments. An IR measuring instrument can only be characterized metrologically by performing measurements with de-fined concentrations of these substances. At the Dräger applications lab, measure-ment data of this kind has been obtained for well over a hundred different gases and vapors. And, of course, this fund of metrological experience grows with ev-ery new request and measurement.

Various measuring wavelengths

If, for example, the objective is to detect many different vapors in a facility where solvents are stored, it is very important to know what substances are involved and how the intended IR measuring de-vice will react. The reason is simple: As a rule, whenever a whole group of dif-ferent substances is involved, the mea-suring instrument must be calibrated to handle the substance to which it reacts

with the least sensitivity. As a result, this substance moves to the 45° line in the diagram of characteristic curves, and all the other characteristic lines lie above it. In an IR measuring instrument, how-ever, the resulting sensitivity spread can be considerably greater than in a cata-lytic bead sensor (see diagram). In fact, it can be so great that an alarm thresh-old of 20 percent of the lower explosive limit (LEL) can be exceeded for what are actually much smaller concentrations.

Depending on the specific applica-tion, one should therefore use IR mea-suring systems whose measured wave-length differs in the infrared range. The median wavelength of type 334, for ex-ample, is 3.34 micrometers; that of type 340 is 3.4 micrometers. The measure-ment sensitivities of these two types are very different – there are even substances that can only be detected by one of the two types. For example, only type 334 can detect ethene, butadiene, and benzene or styrene vapors, while only type 340 can detect cyclohexane vapor.

Larger molecules

One would actually suppose that the IR absorption increases with the number of carbon-hydrogen bonds in a molecule. That is true to a certain extent. Measur-ing instruments designed to detect flam-mable gases and vapors are scaled in % LEL, and the LEL itself falls as the mol-ecule size increases. In other words, this supposition is only partially correct. But IR measuring instruments can at least detect substances which, in the case of a catalytic bead sensor, would exhibit

much too small a thermocatalytic effect. They also achieve this feat with sufficient sensitivity. For example, longer-chain hydrocarbons like n-decane and unde-cane are easily detected by IR measuring instruments (preferably type 340), while catalytic bead sensors are still unable to detect them.

catalytic bead or Infrared?

It is clear that the use of IR measuring instruments without knowledge of the measuring performance, without an ap-plication laboratory, and without cus-tomer support is often not possible. This is because it is always necessary to cal-ibrate such instruments on the basis of sound safety engineering. The initial cal-ibration, and thus the degree of safety re-quired, stands or falls with the quality of the list of stored substances. In such an application, an IR measuring system is clearly the more durable and less main-tenance-intensive product when com-pared with the catalytic bead sensor. As far as the operator is concerned, the sum of the operating and purchasing costs is likely to be roughly the same in both cases – when calculated over a certain pe-riod of time.

There is no categorical answer to the frequently discussed question, “catal-ytic bead or infrared?” Both techniques have their raison d’être; they even com plement one another. The product range of stationary gas detection equip-ment can only be complete if both tech-niques for detecting flammable gases and vapors continue to be supported and improved. dr. Wolfgang Jessel

Infraredthe wavelength of viwsible light ranges from around 0.4 (blue) to 0.8 micrometers (red). the leDs in the remote controls of consumer electronics devices emit radiation of an only slightly longer wavelength – about 0.9 to 1 micrometer – which is already invisible, however. the wavelength range of interest for gas-measurement technology is almost four times as long, at around 3.3 to 3.5 micrometers. For these wavelengths, it is still (just) possible to use conventional radiation sources (incandescent bulbs), whereas the breath alcohol measurement techniques in the range of 10 micrometers have to use special sources. As infrared measurement technology obeys the laws of optics, one often hears of “dirty optics,” mirrors and ir optical mea-suring devices.

catalytic bead and infrared complement one another

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Ein auf Propan kalibrierter Wärmetönungssensor zeigt hinsichtlich seiner Messempfindlichkeit gegenüber typischen Lösemitteln ein ganz anderes Bild als ein IR-Transmitter Typ 340 oder ein bis auf die Messwellenlänge praktisch identischer IR-Transmitter vom Typ 334:rot: Propan (UEG = 1.7 %V/V), braun: Ethanol (UEG = 3.1 %V/V), gelb: Ethylacetat (UEG = 2.0 %V/V), grün: Methyl-i-butylketon (UEG = 1.2 %V/V), blau: 1-Methoxy-2-propanol (UEG = 1.8 %V/V), violett: Toluol (UEG = 1.1 %V/V)

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In respect to its measuring sensitivity for different solvents catalytic bead sensors calibrated for propane show a completely differentdiagram compared to IR-transmitters type 340 or IR-transmitters type 334 which are identical except for their measuring wavelength: red: Propane (LEL = 1.7 %v/v), brown: Ethanol (LEL = 3.1 %v/v), yellow: Ethyl acetate (LEL = 2.0 %v/v), green: Methyl-i-butylketone (LEL = 1.2 %v/v), blue: 1-Methoxy-2-propanol (LEL = 1.8 %v/v), violet: Toluene (LEL = 1.1 %v/v)

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The diagrams show measuring sensitivity with respect to typical solvents for three different sensors, each calibrated for propane. at the top is a catalytic bead sensor, in the middle is a type 340 Ir transmitter, and at bottom is a type 334 Ir transmitter, which is practically iden tical except for the wavelength. red: propane (LEL = 1.7 %V/V), brown: ethanol (LEL = 3.1 %V/V), yellow: ethyl acetate (LEL = 2.0 %V/V), green: methyl isobutyl ketone (LEL = 1.2 %V/V), blue: 1-methoxy-2-propanol (LEL = 1.8 %V/V), purple: toluene (LEL = 1.1 %V/V)


Dräger review 100 | JUNe 2010

Where Gases Show Their Colors Dräger tubes are a classic instrument when it comes to analyzing gases and determining their concentrations. meTiCulouS produCTion is required to ensure the high reliability of these tools – which is why Dräger has been producing them in-house for over 70 years.

With its first cry, a newborn baby crosses the threshold into life as a separate being and begins

breathing. Oxygen is vital in this situa-tion. Being without it for just a few min-utes can be critical. What’s more, it is essential that humans inhale this elixir of life in an uncontaminated form, be-cause they have no defense against toxic gases. If the gases have a strong odor at low concentrations – as is the case with sulfur compounds (mercaptanes, for ex-ample) – the people affected can at least flee. But not every hazard announces it-self. Carbon monoxide, for example, is odorless. Once leaked, gas is soon every-where. The laws of thermodynamics en-sure that it spreads.

Around 250 types of tubes

A detection system must respond reli-ably to a variety of gases, identify them, and measure their concentration in the ambient air. “Dräger tubes come in a di-verse spectrum of varieties,” says Bernd Witt foth, who heads this unit at Dräger. “Some of the hottest sellers among our roughly 250 types of tubes for up to 500 gases are tubes for the offshore industry,” he adds. “These are important when it comes to the detection of hydrogen sul-fide.” Witt foth is also quick to point out the advantages offered by a fast-acting analysis technology used on site that re-quires no electricity and thus does not pose a spark hazard.

Measurement itself is easy. In principle, the user opens the glass tube at both ends using a device that looks like a pencil sharpener and places it in the Who can identify the various gases

by their colors? dräger tubes for approximately 500 gases contain indicators that change color if a specific gas is present. D

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29Dräger review 100 | JUNe 2010

Portable gas DetectioN InsIght

Where gases show their Colors Dräger tubes are a classic instrument when it comes to analyzing gases and determining their concentrations. metICulous produCtIon is required to ensure the high reliability of these tools – which is why Dräger has been producing them in-house for over 70 years.

With its first cry, a newborn baby crosses the threshold into life as a separate being and begins

breathing. Oxygen is vital in this situa-tion. Being without it for just a few min-utes can be critical. What’s more, it is essential that humans inhale this elixir of life in an uncontaminated form, be-cause they have no defense against toxic gases. If the gases have a strong odor at low concentrations – as is the case with sulfur compounds (mercaptanes, for ex-ample) – the people affected can at least flee. But not every hazard announces it-self. Carbon monoxide, for example, is odorless. Once leaked, gas is soon every-where. The laws of thermodynamics en-sure that it spreads.

Around 250 types of tubes

A detection system must respond reli-ably to a variety of gases, identify them, and measure their concentration in the ambient air. “Dräger tubes come in a di-verse spectrum of varieties,” says Bernd Witt foth, who heads this unit at Dräger. “Some of the hottest sellers among our roughly 250 types of tubes for up to 500 gases are tubes for the offshore industry,” he adds. “These are important when it comes to the detection of hydrogen sul-fide.” Witt foth is also quick to point out the advantages offered by a fast-acting analysis technology used on site that re-quires no electricity and thus does not pose a spark hazard.

Measurement itself is easy. In principle, the user opens the glass tube at both ends using a device that looks like a pencil sharpener and places it in the

manually operated “accuro” hand pump. The hand pump pulls a precisely metered amount of ambient air through the tube. If a particular gas is present in the air, it reacts with the indicator in the tube. This chemical reaction results in an easily vis-ible change in color. The amount of this gas in the air in ppm – parts per million, in other words, milliliters per cubic me-ter, for example – can then be read off of a graduated scale on the tube. This colo-rimetric method was patented in the U.S. in 1919. Since Dräger presented its first tube for the detection of carbon monox-ide using this technique in 1937, the com-pany has helped to protect people by pro-viding millions and millions of Dräger tubes. Today, in order to ensure the ap-propriate quality, these tubes are pro-duced in Lübeck, Germany, in a techno-logically advanced and fully automated manufacturing operation.

But how do these nondescript glass tubes measuring some 125 millimeters in length and around seven millimeters in diameter actually work? At the center of the tubes is roughly two grams of a gran-ular substrate that contains the chemi-cal indicator. “The carrier substance,” ex-plains Witt foth, “comprises grains with a diameter of between 0.2 and 1.2 millime-ters. Their exact size is a function of their intended application.” A total of 12 differ-ent carrier materials are used. “We are all familiar with the silica gel from the little bags that are often included as a drying agent with electronic equipment,” con-tinues Witt foth. This material is porous and therefore holds larger amounts of an indicator substance. However, if smaller >

amounts of indicator are sufficient to sig-nal the presence of certain gases, smaller grains of glass are used as the carrier ma-terial. These grains are produced in the required grain size and purity from bro-ken pieces of quartz glass in an in-house glass mill. “We are a batch plant and pro-duce custom batches on an order-by-or-der basis,” explains Witt foth. This keeps inventories low and the product reactive. “The tubes have a chemical shelf life of 24 months from the date of delivery,” says Witt foth, adding that random samples are taken from the batch and tested periodi-cally during the shelf life period.

Continuous tests

In parallel, chemical technicians have been mixing the indicator according to a formula. Some 400 basic substances are available for composing the reagent sys-tem. “Each batch is custom mixed. Even the humidity can trigger undesired re-actions. A formula therefore can’t really be repeated 100 percent,” says Witt foth. This is why up to 70 complete tubes are

In charge of tube production: Bernd Witt foth

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30 Dräger review 100 | JUNe 2010 Dräger review 100 | JUNe 2010

produced for preliminary testing. These are used to check compliance with the specification immediately upon comple-tion of the preparation. Once the combi-nation of carrier substance (silica gel or grains of glass) and indicator have been individually matched, the material must be processed within the next six weeks. If this condition isn’t fulfilled, the test pro-cedure begins all over again.

The Dräger tube reagent prepara-tion is stored in 20-liter conical-shoulder bott les that are hermetically sealed with ground glass stoppers. Just as the chem-ical properties of the materials involved can be very different, so too can the phy-sical properties. “Some materials are al-most as sticky as honey,” says Witt foth, “while others are so dry that they can become electrostatically charged while being filled into the tubes and adhere to the glass walls. At least that’s what would happen if we didn’t specifically dissipate this static electricity.” This is particularly important when various substances must be layered one after another in a glass tube. Altogether, as many as eight layers can be involved.

The tubes themselves are made of glass, whose type varies according to the intended use. High-quality labora-tory glass grades such as Duran or “Du-robax” borosilicate glass are frequently used if extraordinary chemical resis-tance is required. The tubes, which are generally provided with one end already melted closed, resemble a pipette that is closed at the bottom. After an inspec-tion aimed at detecting possible defects, the tubes are loaded into a filling ma-

>

A crystal-clear process provides the basis for the reliable detection of gases

Some of the roughly 250 types of tubes still require that some things be done by hand (left). The test on the right is fully automated. Only a machine can tap against the tubes 2,000 times with consistent precision and a force that is four times stronger than that of gravity.

Finally, the heat of the gas burner first makes the open end of the glass tube soft before it is melted closed (left). The mini-vacuum this produces is part of the process, which is checked and documented every step of the way.

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Dräger review 100 | JUNe 2010 31Dräger review 100 | JUNe 2010

Portable gas DetectioN InsIght

produced for preliminary testing. These are used to check compliance with the specification immediately upon comple-tion of the preparation. Once the combi-nation of carrier substance (silica gel or grains of glass) and indicator have been individually matched, the material must be processed within the next six weeks. If this condition isn’t fulfilled, the test pro-cedure begins all over again.

The Dräger tube reagent prepara-tion is stored in 20-liter conical-shoulder bott les that are hermetically sealed with ground glass stoppers. Just as the chem-ical properties of the materials involved can be very different, so too can the phy-sical properties. “Some materials are al-most as sticky as honey,” says Witt foth, “while others are so dry that they can become electrostatically charged while being filled into the tubes and adhere to the glass walls. At least that’s what would happen if we didn’t specifically dissipate this static electricity.” This is particularly important when various substances must be layered one after another in a glass tube. Altogether, as many as eight layers can be involved.

The tubes themselves are made of glass, whose type varies according to the intended use. High-quality labora-tory glass grades such as Duran or “Du-robax” borosilicate glass are frequently used if extraordinary chemical resis-tance is required. The tubes, which are generally provided with one end already melted closed, resemble a pipette that is closed at the bottom. After an inspec-tion aimed at detecting possible defects, the tubes are loaded into a filling ma-

chine that took three years to design. The machine first places a small ceramic disk into the tube. This disk is three mil-limeters thick and contains up to eleven holes – each measuring 0.2 millimeters in diameter – through which the air can later pass. “That serves as our zero point for filling,” explains Witt foth. This ceramic disk also ensures that the material does not pour out if the tube is opened prop-erly. The materials can now be added in a defined sequence and defined quanti-ties. Each individual tube stars in a video of the filling process, which a video cam-era transmits to a control monitor.

The analysis system is initially sealed using a layer of glass fabric that has been cut out from a strip of the material and has the shape of a circle. Something re-ferred to rather floridly yet nevertheless appropriately as the “tulip” ensures that the grains are firmly secured. The tulip is likewise a circular blank that has been stamped from stainless steel wire mesh. It has a mesh size of 0.2 millimeters that has been formed into the shape of a tulip by means of a spine. The resulting folds gen-erate the tension that results in the hold.

tapped 2,000 times

Does it really hold? The answer is pro-vided by a box that taps the tube 2,000 times with a force that is four times stron-ger than that of gravity. Nothing is per-mitted to shift unduly in the box. And only homeopathic quantities of the “sub-strate grains” at most are permitted to fall through the holes in the ceramic disk. This quality-assurance measure can only be performed after the tube has been au-

tomatically sealed, of course. The open end of the tube is first passed by a num-ber of smaller gas flames, which not only make the glass soft, but also heat the air to the point that a mini-vacuum is estab-lished when the tube cools down after hav-ing been melted closed.

The tubes, which are still hot, are col-lected in a wooden crate (plastic would melt, and the glass would shatter upon contact with metal). A custom calibra-tion scale is prepared for each batch produced. This is done by taking sam-ples during production, testing the tubes with a variety of defined gas concentra-tions, and using these values to generate a batch-specific calibration curve. Even the aging of the tubes is simulated to en-sure that they achieve the targeted chem-ical shelf life. The scale is printed on the sticky side of an adhesive film, which is wrapped around the tube. This arrange-ment also provides mechanical protection. “The scale must not only be accurate; the concentration of the detected gas in the ambient air in ppm, for example, must also be easily legible,” explains Witt foth.

Under certain circumstances, pre-tubes are required to first break down the gas to be measured so that it can be analyzed. Dräger is particularly proud of its equipment’s ability to detect relatively stable compounds such as sulfuryl fluo-ride – a process that requires the air to be heated to roughly 900 °C in a pretube. How is this done without electricity? The trick is to use a chemical compound that releases energy when it reacts with the air.

Isn’t chemistry smelly by nature? “You don’t smell anything around here unless we are working with a lot of butyric acid,” says Witt foth, wrinkling his nose. Isn’t it dangerous to test tubes that detect toxic gases? “No, it isn’t. That’s because the people who work in this field do so in ac-cordance with the strictest of safety regu-lations and have the necessary qualifica-tions.” The expert doubts that electronic systems will replace the Dräger tubes any time soon. “After all, the tubes are reli-able, inexpensive, fast, and require no electricity.” nils schiffhauer

>

some of the roughly 250 types of tubes still require that some things be done by hand (left). the test on the right is fully automated. Only a machine can tap against the tubes 2,000 times with consistent precision and a force that is four times stronger than that of gravity.

Finally, the heat of the gas burner first makes the open end of the glass tube soft before it is melted closed (left). the mini-vacuum this produces is part of the process, which is checked and documented every step of the way.

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OutlOOk nanotechnology


Ever since the Japanese chemist Sumio Iijima first demonstrated the existence of carbon nanotubes

in 1991, the little structures have become veritable icons of the new technology. This is due in part to the tubes’ unusual struc-ture, in which sheets of carbon atoms ar-ranged in regular hexagons are rolled up into tube-shaped molecules that can be up to several micrometers long.

This esthetic whim of nature makes the tubes very versatile, with a strength greater than steel and the ability to con-duct electricity better than copper and heat better than diamond. Depending on

the arrangement of the carbon hexagons, nanotubes can be either metallic or semi-conducting. What’s more, the tubes are suitable for use as measuring devices in new sensors.

Conductive hexagons

“The crucial advantage of nanotubes is their sensitivity,” says Todd Krauss, a chemist at the University of Rochester in New York State. The reason for this sensi-tivity is that electricity can only flow along the surface of the hollow, tube-shaped molecules, meaning that electrons only pass through the carbon hexagons. “Any

Nanoworld Sensors nanotechnology uses individual atoms and molecules like tiny lego blocks. when combined in clever ways, the blocks create materials with amaziNg prOpertieS, such as carbon nanotubes.

change in the tubes’ surroundings (i.e. when another molecule adheres to the tubes) influences the transport of the electrons,” says Krauss. This change can be detected by electrical or optical means and shows if substances that researchers are looking for are present.

The team, headed by the chemist Nich-olas Kotov at the University of Michigan, has developed a particularly clever appli-cation: the researchers converted textiles into a flat sensor. To do this, they dipped cotton fibers into a solution containing the polymer Nafion as well as nanotubes carrying antibodies that only react with

as exciting as Hitchcock’s Vertigo: Carbon nanotubes

the human blood plasma protein albu-min. Nafion ensures that the nanotubes adhere to the fibers. If blood stains the fibers, the antibodies combine with the al-bumin and separate themselves from the nanotubes. This reduces the distance be-tween the tube-shaped molecules, which also reduces the electrical resistance if voltage is applied to the textiles.

In experiments, the resistance of cotton fibers prepared in this way dropped suddenly from 60 to 20 kilohms after researchers dipped the fibers into blood diluted in water. The mixture did not react to bovine blood, however, because its blood plasma protein has a different structure from that found in human blood and therefore does not interact with the antibodies used in the tests.

Such sensor fabrics could immedi-ately notify emergency rescue teams, for example, that the person wearing the tex-tiles was losing blood due to an injury. The P

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nanotechnology OutlOOk

Nanoworld Sensors nanotechnology uses individual atoms and molecules like tiny lego blocks. when combined in clever ways, the blocks create materials with amaziNg prOpertieS, such as carbon nanotubes.

change in the tubes’ surroundings (i.e. when another molecule adheres to the tubes) influences the transport of the electrons,” says Krauss. This change can be detected by electrical or optical means and shows if substances that researchers are looking for are present.

The team, headed by the chemist Nich-olas Kotov at the University of Michigan, has developed a particularly clever appli-cation: the researchers converted textiles into a flat sensor. To do this, they dipped cotton fibers into a solution containing the polymer Nafion as well as nanotubes carrying antibodies that only react with

the human blood plasma protein albu-min. Nafion ensures that the nanotubes adhere to the fibers. If blood stains the fibers, the antibodies combine with the al-bumin and separate themselves from the nanotubes. This reduces the distance be-tween the tube-shaped molecules, which also reduces the electrical resistance if voltage is applied to the textiles.

In experiments, the resistance of cotton fibers prepared in this way dropped suddenly from 60 to 20 kilohms after researchers dipped the fibers into blood diluted in water. The mixture did not react to bovine blood, however, because its blood plasma protein has a different structure from that found in human blood and therefore does not interact with the antibodies used in the tests.

Such sensor fabrics could immedi-ately notify emergency rescue teams, for example, that the person wearing the tex-tiles was losing blood due to an injury. The

only drawback of the fibers is that they can only be used once. Washing the fibers also removes the nanotube impregnation.

In cooperation with scientists from China, Kotov used the same principle to develop nanotube-coated paper that can detect cyanobacteria, which contami-nates drinking water in many countries. In this case, the antibodies react with a toxin produced by the bacteria. “We were very much surprised that the sensitivity was as high as with the best biochemical tests,” says Kotov. What’s more, the nan-otube system took only a fraction of the time to deliver results. The concept has yet progressed thus far for it to be used in developing countries, Kotov adds.

always a surprise in store

A similarly sensitive sensor was developed by the team headed by Zhenano Bao, a chemist at Stanford University. However, this sensor uses nanotube tran sistors,

in which several tube-shaped molecules link two electrodes on a chip that regis-ters changes in electrical conductivity. The researchers have conducted tests in which they have succeeded in detecting >

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Nano roadmap2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Basis for reinforcing fibersElectrically conductive plasticsMembranes, filtersFuel cell electrodesElectrodes for lithium-ion batteriesFE backlight for LCDsLarge field emission displays (FEDs)Heat conduction (cooling) in electronicsNear-infrared photoluminescence for sensorsNanoelectronics/FETsDrug delivery

Basic research Applied research Initial products Market penetration

E32-34_Nano_S 33 26.05.2010 7:02:09 Uhr


OutlOOk nanotechnology

concentrations of only 2 ppb (molecules per billion molecules of a particular liquid) of the explosive TNT and of a vari-ant of the nerve poison Sarin.

Detecting changes in electrical prop-erties is just one possibility of using nano-tubes as sensors. A second possibility uses the nanotubes’ ability to emit light at a cer-tain wavelength after they had previously been illuminated (photoluminescence). “Coating a nanotube with short segments of DNA leads to a demonstrable shift of the photo luminescence energy,” explains the physicist Achim Hartschuh from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. As a re-sult, the light emitted by the nano tubes changes color. This effect also occurs when biological molecules accumulate on the DNA coating. A team headed by Michael Strano at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has employed this approach to develop prototype sensors that could one day be used for highly precise medical diag-noses. “Photo luminescence is much more sensitive than electrical measuring sys-tems,” says Michael Strano. The changes in the light can also be used to determine the number of molecules that have accu-mulated on a prepared nanotube.

Whereas such sophisticated nano - sen sors have not yet reached market readiness, the tube-shaped molecules are already being used as additives in everyday products and industrial goods. For example, they increase the capabili-ties of rechargeable batteries and make bicycle frames and tennis rackets more stable. Nanotubes will certainly continue to hold surprises in store for us in the future. Niels Boeing

Nanotechnology could be used to create biosensors

HEADQuARtERS: Dräger Safety AG & Co. kGaA Revalstraße 1 23560 lübeck, Germany www.draeger.com

SuBSIDIARIES:

AuStRAlIA Draeger Safety Pacific Pty. Ltd. Axxess Corporate Park Unit 99, 45 Gilby Road Mt. Waverly. Vic 3149 Tel +61 3 92 65 50 00 Fax +61 3 92 65 50 95

CANADA Draeger Canada Ltd. 7555 Danbro Crecent Mississauga, Ontario L5N 6P9 Tel +1 905 821 89 88 Fax +1 905 821 25 65

P. R. CHINA Bejing Fortune Draeger Safety Equipment Co., Ltd. A22 Yu An Rd, B Area, Tianzhu Airport Industrial Zone, Shunyi District, Bejing 101300 Tel +86 10 80 49 80 00 Fax +86 10 80 49 80 05

FRANCE Dräger Safety France S.A.S. 3c, Route de la Fédération 67025 Strasbourg Cedex 1 Tel +33 3 88 40 59 29 Fax +33 3 88 40 76 67

NEtHERlANDS Dräger Safety Nederland B.V. Edisonstraat 53 2700 AH Zoetermeer Tel +31 79 344 46 66 Fax +31 79 344 47 90

REP. OF SOutH AFRICA Dräger South Africa (Pty) Ltd. P.O. Box 68601 Bryanston 2021 Tel +27 11 465 99 59 Fax +27 11 465 69 53

SINGAPORE Draeger Safety Asia Pte Ltd 67 Ayer Rajah Crescent # 06-03 Singapore 139950 Tel +65 68 72 92 88 Fax +65 65 12 19 08

SPAIN Draeger Safety Hispania S.A. Calle Xaudaró 5 28034 Madrid Tel +34 91 728 34 00 Fax +34 91 729 48 99

uNItED kINGDOM Draeger Safety UK Ltd. Blyth Riverside Business Park Blyth, Northumberland NE24 4RG Tel +44 1670 352-891 Fax +44 1670 356-266

uSA Draeger Safety, Inc. 101 Technology Drive Pittsburgh, PA 15275 Tel +1 412 787 8383 Fax +1 412 787 2207

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PuBlISHING INFORMAtION

Publisher: Drägerwerk ag & co. Kgaa, corporate communications Editorial Address: Moislinger allee 53–55, 23542 lübeck, germany / [email protected], www.draeger.com Editor in Chief: Björn wölke, tel. +49 451 882 20 09, Fax +49 451 882 39 44 Publishing House: tellus PuBliShing gMBh Editorial Consultant: nils Schiffhauer (responsible according to press law) Art Direction, Design, and Picture Editing: redaktion 4 gmbh, hamburg translation: transForm gmbh, cologne Printing: Dräger + wullenwever print+media ISSN 1869-7275

The articles in Dräger Review provide information on products and their possible applications in general. They do not constitute any guarantee that a product has specific properties or is suitable for any specific purpose. All specialist personnel are required to make use exclusively of the skills they have acquired through their education and training and through practical experience. The views, opinions, and statements expressed by the persons

named in the texts as well as by the external authors of the articles do not necessarily correspond to those of Drägerwerk AG & Co. KGaA. Such views, opinions, and statements are solely the opinions of the respective person. Not all of the products named in this magazine are available worldwide. Equipment packages can vary from country to country. We reserve the right to make changes to products. The current information is available from your Dräger representative. © Drägerwerk AG & Co. KGaA, 2010. All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a data system, or transmitted in any form or using any method whether electronic or mechanical, by means of photocopying, recor ding, or any other technique in whole or in part without the prior permission of Drägerwerk AG & Co. KGaA.

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: WWW.DRAEGER.COM

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Dräger X-zone® 5000: wireless fenceline for monitoringState-of-the-art area monitoring – the Dräger X-zone 5000, in combination with the Dräger X-am 5000 or X-am 5600 gas detection instruments, can be used for the measurement of upto six gases. This easily transportable, robust and water-proof unit extends mobile gas detection technology to a unique system with many applications.

Safety in a row

1935_X-zone 5000 englisch:Ad_Industriekampagne_DINA4_de 05.05.10 15:00 Seite 1

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Quick Rescue with Plenty of TimeThe closed-circuit breathing apparatus PSS BG 4 plus – shown here with the housing shell removed – provides up to four hours of clean breath-ing air. The two-liter gas cylinder 1 holds 400 liters of oxygen at a pressure of 200 bars. When the valve 2 is open, an average of 1.66 liters of oxygen per minute flow from the pressure reducer 3 and into the inhalation side. An increased amount of oxygen will be provided via the minimum valve 4 if required. The hose 5 leads the oxygen to the mask 6 , the directional valve opens easily during inhalation.

The exhaled air, with its increased CO2 concentration, is led via the exhalation hose 7 through the absorber 8 , which holds 2.7 kilograms of soda lime to remove the hazardous gas. The breathing bag 9 has

a capacity of 5.5 liters and functions as a “counter-lung,” taking in the purified air and returning it to the cycle via the breathing air cooler 10 . This can, for example, hold a block of ice to ensure that the air fed back into the inhalation circuit remains below a temperature of 35 degrees Celsius. The springs 11 exert a defined force on the breathing bag via the bridge 12 , resulting in a slight positive pressure which provides the unit with additional protection against hazardous gases.

The switchbox 13 issues a warning via the “Bodyguard 2” (U.S.: “Sentinel”) 14 when the cylinder valve has not been opened. This mon-itor shows a range of information, including the remaining operational time and pressure.

CLOSE-UP CLOSED-CIRCUIT BREATHING APPARATUS

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EU4_385_S 36 26.05.2010 12:49:19 Uhr

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Laboratory in a tube - Dräger - USAwe knock on his side door to say: ‘welcome to the hospital....

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