How do you calibrate?

Any refinery control lab, R&D lab, or gas sensor development lab requires accurate calibration gas standards for calibrating GC, GC-MS, or other analytical or detection devices. Gas Cylinders are typically thought of for calibrating instrumentation in lab and process applications. While gas cylinders are certified NIST traceable standards, they have inherent characteristics that create unknown calibration issues. Complications arise when the calibration requires extremely low concentrations, complex gas mixtures, or a large variety of compounds are required.

Static mixtures in gas cylinders can be unreliable and inaccurate at the trace concentration levels (ppm to ppb) that analytical technology now demands. In gas cylinders containing low level mixtures, the trace components often adsorb to, or react with, the cylinder walls causing the standard to be inaccurate and unreliable. Also, it may be impossible to get a matrix gas that is completely free of the trace component, thus making it difficult to get a true reference point with a cylinder mixture. Cylinder storage, temperature and pressure changes, and chemical reactivity all contribute to inaccuracies when using static gas cylinder mixtures.

KIN-TEK offers over 550 chemical gas standards using permeation tube technology for delivering accurate NIST Traceable calibration gases. Certified Trace Source™ disposable or refillable type tubes come with a NIST Traceable Certificate of Calibration and are manufactured for use within a Span Pac Industrial or FlexStream™ Permeation system. Trace calibration gases from high ppm to ppb concentrations, complex gas mixtures, and multi-point calibration curves are created easily using specified permeation tubes.