Case Study - Wireless Gas Detection - Chemical Manufacturing

A chemical plant in the Houston , TX area was adjacent to a residential area. This plant was required to monitor these residential areas remotely for Sulfur Dioxide. The safety engineer determined eight monitoring points were needed and that each monitoring point should have two alarm levels to indicate the presence of low levels of Sulfur Dioxide. The engineer also stated that the range for the SO2 detector had to be 0-20 ppm and it required non-intrusive calibration.

The remote locations of the sensors dictated the need for a wireless transmission of data back to the plant control room. The Sierra Monitor Model 4105-10 Sulfur Dioxide Gas Sensor Module includes non-intrusive calibration but, has a range of 0-100 ppm. Sierra Monitor re-ranged the 4105-10 modules to a 0-20 ppm range to meet the customer specification.

The local Sierra Monitor representative, AWC, further modified the sensor modules to package a wireless transmitter units offered by one of their other principals. The packaged units were installed in NEMA4X enclosures for remote mounting. AWC also furnished the base station receiver to poll the remote units and provide analog inputs to the plant DCS. The base station is installed in the plant control room.

Since our local representative, AWC, was also an experience integrator, Sierra Monitor was able to quickly and effectively make the necessary changes to an existing product to meet the customer’s very specific requirements. The resulting product enabled this major chemical manufacturer to meet their safety needs and effectively satisfy both safety and community requirements.