Natural gas monitoring

I know of no instrument to do this.

The spec I work to (AMS2750D), requires that we have gas analyzed once a year. The only way to do this is to send a sample to an outside lab. They send me empty canisters, I take the samples, then I send it back to them.

The report includes BTU data, sulfur content, and any other impurities. The data changes little from year to year.

What should be more important to you is flue gas analysis, as it can tell you if you are burning efficiently.

You can see them here:

http://www.einstrumentsgroup.com/gas_analyzers/ - sorry, link no longer available

From the Field;

Mr.Bricktop is correct. The quaility of your gas to a point will show up in your stack monitoring. 4mmbtu units are a little small for any high end equipment unless they operate all the time and you have load swings.

I suggest tune em up and keep em clean.

Mike

The quality of natural gas is all about the higher heating value. This can be determined if you have a BTU meter that performs density compensation.

I installed Spirax Sarco's S-PhD flow meter (and temperature/pressure transmitters and a flow processor), and found that the quality (HHV) of my natural gas was lower than was shown on my bills, and was able to obtain a credit from my local utility.

My local Spirax Sarco contact was very helpful in assisting in making the right selection, and have saved over $60K since using their gas meter for bill verification.

Dear Friend,

The quality of Natural Gas can be monitored online with the help of Mass Spectrometers and gas chromatographs.It depends on your requirement which one will best for u.

In mass spectrometers u can analyse more than 15 components of a sample with a very fast analysis rate with a high accuracy.I know in some plants where the quality of natural natural gas plays very importent role in decidng the measurement of correct flow and deciding the quantity for metering purpose. At the same time this analysis is being utilized for advance Process Control Systems to optimize the plant performance. You can check the mass spectrometer with M/s ABB Extreel & M/s Perkin Emler etc.

I hope that this is in line with your requirement.

Regards,

Mayank

Do you know how much Mass Spectrometers and gas chromatographs cost? It would be cost prohibitive to purchase one just for this application.

Again, it's much more important to measure flue gasses, that is, after combustion.

Hi! You should check out Daniel (a part of Emerson ) - they produce in-line gas chromatographs capable of measuring gas composition as well as BTU values under brand Danalyzer. The typical device can handle upto 6 streams and the cycle length is 3 - 6 min. You can directly connect it to a flow computer (eg. Floboss 407)and get flow values in BTU.... www.emerson.com/Daniel I think ABB is also supplying a similar device but I have seen only Daniel in operation :-)

Most gas suppliers will rate the gas supplied for calorific value per unit volume, which should be shown on their billing invoices.

A volumetric flowmeter/totaliser will do the rest.

Those two pieces of information are used to prepare the bill.