Gas Dilution Apparatus for Preparing Reproducible Dynamic Gas Mixtures in any Desired Concentration and Complexity

A portable gas dilution apparatus has been constructed by which reproducible known mixtures of the common air pollutants added to carbon filtered air can be prepared in any desired quantity, complexity, and concentration. Sulfur dioxide mixtures with and without the addition of nitrogen dioxide and/or ozone have been analyzed by the conductimetric, titrimetric, turbidimetric, and colorimetric methods. Excellent analytical agreement with the concentrations obtained from the volumes of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, hydrogen sulflde, and air that are mixed has been shown by all these methods when an efficient absorber is used though the titrimetric method tended to give slightly low results. Some common absorbers show reduced efficiency in absorbing some of the gases. Nitrogen dioxide determinations by the Saltzman method are not significantly affected by the addition of sulfur dioxide to the nitrogen dioxide-air mixtures. A modification of the Saltzman reagent, due to Lyshkow, was tested. It accelerates the rate of color development and should be useful in the automatic nitrogen dioxide analyzer. The determination of hydrogen sulfide is not affected by the presence of nitrogen dioxide in the gas mixture but sulfur dioxide increases the sulfide reading by about 5-15% while ozone decreases the reading.