There seems to be some confusion about the calibration of gas monitors. It’s very simple, really. Gas monitors are life-saving devices. They are precision instruments that are intended solely to measure and monitor potentially lethal gases in the workplace. The only way to ensure that a gas monitor will accurately respond to the hazardous gas or gases it is designed to detect is to calibrate the sensors against a known gas standard.
Gas sensors are the heart of a gas monitoring instrument, and the foundation of gas detection. Sensor technologies most commonly used for confined space and personal monitoring include catalytic diffusion for combustible gases and electrochemical sensors for oxygen and toxic gases. Each has special characteristics and calibration requirements, but none are immune to the eventual need for verification of the sensor’s response to a known concentration of a target gas.