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Product category: Gas, Chemical, Radiation and Magnetic Sensors
News Release from: Barr Associates | Subject: Optical filters
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial Team on 17 June 2002

Optical filters aid gas detection

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A novel range of optical filters can be used to "filter out" background or unwanted gases giving a gas detector a clear view the specific gas under investigation.

The threat to personal safety and to the environment from combustion and process gases and chemicals has been put firmly in the spotlight in the past few years For manufacturers wishing to meet the stringent emissions reductions and new health and safety requirements, monitoring and control have become key areas of concern

This has lead to the fledgling environmental controls industry coming of age.

Measuring the absorbing affects of gases on certain wavelengths of infra-red light has emerged as one of the fastest and most reliable methods of detection and monitoring harmful and polluting gases and is used by many instrument manufacturers.

Optical filters are used to "filter out" background or unwanted gases giving the detector a clear view the specific gas under investigation.

Many of these gases are regularly used in industrial process applications and have to be monitored continuously in the interests of safety and product quality.

Barr Associates has been designing and manufacturing optical filters for these important applications for many years and has developed processes to produce some of the most accurate filters in the industry.

In addition, similar optical filters are used in infra-red cameras, often being used to check excessive heating, heating uniformity or looking for "waste" heat in a building or process as well as frictional heating to detect high ware etc.

They are also used in LIDAR systems (light detection and ranging) to enable scientists to detect and measure greenhouse gases and other harmful particles present in our atmosphere as well as looking at land usage in agriculture.

Each optical filter is designed specifically to isolate the wavelength of the gases under investigation, and this often means having to use more than one filter in a system that is measuring many different types of gas.

With modern processes it's possible to make optical filters to almost any band shape in UV, visible and infra-red wavelengths and to any physical size.

Not only can these filters help with gas detection, they can be made to meet the needs of many process applications.

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