Transcript CARBON MONOXIDE

CARBON
MONOXIDE
What is carbon
monoxide?
Carbon monoxide [with the chemical
formula CO] is a colorless, odorless,
tasteless but highly toxic gas.
Despite its serious toxicity,
CO plays a highly useful
role in modern technology.
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Where does carbon
monoxide come
from?
Carbon monoxide is produced by the incomplete
combustion [oxidization] of fossil fuels.
In leisure vehicles the most likely source of carbon
monoxide is from faulty gas appliances.
For gas to burn completely an appliance needs to have a
good air supply, proper gas supply pressure and gas
type, clean burning apparatus, adequate ventilation, and
a sound unobstructed flue for the removal of the products
of combustion.
A clean burning gas appliance will produce flue gases
that consist of water vapour and carbon dioxide.
Faults in any of these due to lack of maintenance, blocked
flues etc can lead to the combustion process being starved
of oxygen (vitiation), and causing incomplete combustion,
and therefore the production of carbon monoxide.
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What makes carbon
monoxide so
dangerous?
When we breath, the oxygen that enters our lungs is
picked up and carried to the various cells of our body
by a substance called hemoglobin, contained within
each of our red blood cells.
Carbon monoxide permanently blocks the oxygen
carrying mechanism of the hemoglobin, making it
permanently incapable of carrying oxygen.
A relatively low concentration of Carbon monoxide
can quickly deactivate enough red blood cells to cause
oxygen starvation of the brain and vital organs,
leading to unconsciousness and death.
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At what level does
carbon monoxide
become toxic?
For healthy adults, CO becomes toxic when it reaches a level
higher than 50 ppm (parts per million) with continuous exposure
over an eight hour period..
When the level of CO becomes higher than that, a person will
suffer from symptoms of exposure. Mild exposure over a few
hours (a CO level between 70 ppm and 100 ppm) include flu-like
symptoms such as headaches, sore eyes and a runny nose.
Medium exposure (a CO level between 150 ppm to 300 ppm) will
produce dizziness, drowsiness and vomiting.
If you suspect the effects of CO, Get you and your family to a
Doctor in the first instance.
Extreme exposure (a CO level of 400 ppm and higher) will result
in unconsciousness, brain damage and death.
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How can Carbon
monoxide be
produced?
Because Carbon
monoxide is so fundamentally
important that many methods have been
developed for its production.
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Producer Gas
is formed by combustion of carbon in
oxygen at high temperatures
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Water Gas
is produced via the endothermic reaction
of steam and carbon
H2O + C → H2 + CO
Because natural sources of carbon monoxide
are so variable from year to year, it is
extremely difficult to accurately measure
natural emissions of the gas.
Carbon monoxide has an indirect radiative
forcing effect through chemical reactions with
other atmospheric constituents Through
natural processes in the atmosphere, it is
eventually oxidized to carbon dioxide.
Carbon monoxide concentrations are both
short-lived in the atmosphere and spatially
variable.
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Carbon monoxide, though thought of as a pollutant
today, has always been present in the atmosphere as
a product of volcanic activity. It also occurs naturally
in bushfires.
The average global background concentrations of 0.1
ppm carbon monoxide in air reflect a balance between
formation and removal rate.
If there were no removal of carbon monoxide, the
average atmospheric concentration would increase at
the rate of 0.06 to 0.5 ppm/yr.