110-Component Specialty Gas Mixture

Linde North America has introduced a groundbreaking 110-component calibration gas mixture. The calibration standard, part of Linde’s HiQ® specialty gases range, comprises the largest number of components, including over a hundred volatile organic compounds (VOCs), of any known calibration gas in commercial use today and represents an extraordinary level of technological achievement. The achievement has been granted Guinness World Record status for the greatest number of separate chemical components in a single gas mixture.

Linde formulated the custom 110-component mixture for TestAmerica which is using the standard in its laboratory for environmental analysis in Austin, Texas. The gas calibration standard will be used to detect and assess VOCs in samples of indoor and ambient air to determine its level of safety and even to identify the potential source of pollution. To produce such a sophisticated and complex mixture of gases requires not only the evaluation of possible interaction of the various components, and subsequent guarantee of mixture stability, but also the accurate manufacture of the final mixture and even the cylinder material selection.

“Linde’s development provided us the capability to have most of these compounds of interest under one analytical standard, cutting the time for set-up and calibration of our own laboratory instruments, and allowing us to run more samples,” commented William Elcoate, TestAmerica’s air product director.

VOCs can emanate from many sources, including consumer products, construction materials and legacy sources of environmental contamination outside and even underneath buildings, for example, fuel leakage from storage tanks. In addition, fuel storage, solvents and certain cleaning materials can have an impact on indoor air quality that may have short or long term health effects on building occupants.

With increasing regulatory requirements, more rigorous demands in measurement and new compounds of concern to evaluate, laboratories performing environmental analysis of air quality are being constantly confronted with new challenges and are under continuous pressure to expand their scope and expertise. Innovative, next generation calibration gas mixtures are essential to enable new air quality analysis technologies and meet the needs of laboratory researchers. Linde plays a pioneering role in the global specialty gases market and these highly innovative gas standards from the SPECTRA product range are further evidence of Linde’s market leading approach for the environmental sector.

“Calibration is vital in order to produce reliable information about the quality of the environment around us,” said Stephen Mandel, head of environmental and calibration products for Linde. “Technologically complex and sophisticated gas standards such as Linde’s new 110-component gas mixture are becoming essential to deliver greater efficiency and confidence to laboratories.”