CO - how high will you go?

[John C. Ratliff]

Don and all,

Just so you'll know, you need to use the absolute pressure in atmospheres to make the multiplication that Don makes above. I've explained this on a newer thread:

How Much CO is divable

SeaRat
John C. Ratliff, CSP, CIH, MSPH

 

[Hatul]

I test my tanks after filling here in Cal and they always read 0. My exhaled breath reads 1-2 ppm so that should be safe. I read somewhere the European standard of max of 4ppm, and I'd use that as my max, but if you get any reading above 0 it is a red flag about the filling facility; they should be reading 0.

 

[DandyDon]

if you get any reading above 0 it is a red flag about the filling facility; they should be reading 0.

Well, Parts Per Million is such a minute measurement. It's fortunate that we can now have field testers that measure in such quantities at reasonable prices, but 1 ppm could easily be a rounding or measurement error.

Testing each and every tank is the safest approach, altho it does get boring when you get zero after zero - until you get your first hit.

 

[Peter69_56]

In OZ its 5 ppm, just checked the Queensland regs.

 

[DandyDon]

In OZ its 5 ppm, just checked the Queensland regs.

So is that all of Australia, or just Queensland. He's in Victoria...

Well the start of the diving holiday has been interesting. I discovered on my first tank that my analyzer does in fact read above 001 when I got a read of 15ppm on the first tank I tested. Immediately rejecting it, I managed to find two tanks that were down around 7ppm.

 

[Peter69_56]

So is that all of Australia, or just Queensland. He's in Victoria...

So you arent just a pretty face DD. Clearly Qld has tighter regulations that the OZ standard

The Australian Standards;

AS/NZS 2299.1:2007 Extract

3.13.1 Breathing air

Breathing air used in diving operations shall—

(a) have no objectionable or nauseous odour;

(b) contain not less than 20% and not more than 22% by volume of oxygen;

(c) contain not more than 11 mg of carbon monoxide per cubic metre (10 p.p.m. by volume);

(d) contain not more than 900 mg of carbon dioxide per cubic metre (480 p.p.m. by volume); and

(e) contain not more than 0.5 mg of oil per cubic metre.

 

[DandyDon]

Clearly Qld has tighter regulations that the OZ standard

So it's 5 ppm for Qld, 10 ppm for Oz overall - unless other provinces may have lower limits - and the shop he was at was in violation, just not busted it seems.

 

[Peter69_56]

This is quite interesting as I am going to Solomons in June. Doing deep diving to 100m so I want my gas to be clean, not just lower than some countries standard somewhere. I will be taking all my analysers to ensure we get good gas. No clean gas and 12 people will not dive.