Technical Bulletin No. 0047: A Guide to the Use of Permeation Tubes as Primary Standards for Instrument Calibration (AQTB)

An essential element of all ambient air quality surveys, process emission inventory programs, and evaluations of control technology effectiveness, is the availability of accurate and readily calibrated analytical methods and instrumentation. The attached Technical Bulletin, prepared with the assistance of Leon Duncan, Research Engineer and Tom Tucker, Research Chemist at the National Council's Southern Regional Center, provides working details on the use of the permeation tube technique for calibrating instruments for reduced sulfur and sulfur dioxide determinations. This technique has already proven its value in a number of National Council studies of kraft process emissions and their control, and ambient dispersion of reduced sulfur compounds. It lends itself readily to use in calibrating such instruments as the gas chromatograph and its various detectors, the Barton electrolytic titrator, conductimetric and calorimetric SO2 analyzers, and the flame photometric sulfur detector, etc. This technique holds out great promise for facilitating studies in which calibrated instrumentation is essential, and its use by member company technical staffs is encouraged.