GAS2007

ISO/TC 158 is the technical committee on analysis of gases, which mainly produces standards on preparation, handling and precision of calibration gases. It was the fourth time that this international, three-day congress was organised. This time the organization surpassed itself and its expectations with 250 participants, nearly 60 lectures and 25 booths by equipment and calibration gas manufacturers at the parallel exhibition. 

Members of the Dutch standardization committees for gas analysis and natural gas assisted NEN. Also (international) organizations like KNCV, EIGA, BIPM and CCQM took part in the preparations and marketing. Overall, the participants were impressed and very positive about the event.

Participating in international standardization

The lecture programme was at a high technical level. It included not only fundamental metrological and quality assurance issues, but also many practical presentations on lab investments or basic emissions measurement. The opening speech was given by Dr. H. de Vries of Rotterdam University, who introduced the participants to the major advantages and motivators of participating in international standardization. After that introduction three parallel lecture sessions started, allowing the participants the possibility to learn about many things surrounding gas quality and testing. Several papers identified the huge financial risks of imprecise sampling in the unloading of liquefied natural gas transport vessels or at refineries. Of course examples of gains were given as well.

The conclusion is clear that measurement requirements get tougher and tougher, pushing the pace of standardization to ways to deal with that. Easy to handle equipment and calibration gasses with improved precision are needed.

Presentations and discussion workshops

Many presentations from equipment manufacturers showed that developments were ongoing business and developments followed one after the other. Improvements enabled by cavity ring down spectroscopy, permeation tubes, photo-acoustics, CLD and neural networking were hot topics, next to a full session highlighting traceability and purity optimization. The scientific posters also gave a good overview of markets to come, both in terms of products as well as regions. Brazilian, Korean and South-African research work were presented next to each other underlying the impact of the use ISO standards.

Discussion workshops were a new part of the three-day programme. They generated animated discussions and several ideas for work. Again steps were taken to improve worldwide efforts to enhance mutual understanding between gas producers and lab accreditors.