2018 SOFIC May 22 Report
The contemporary chemical threat environment is causing the military-industry team to rethink its equipping and materiel strategies – by returning to “basics” so to speak. While chlorine-laced bombs have been used in the current Syrian civil war, sulfur dioxide agents have been detected in Iraq. Indeed, David Mayfield in the Marketing Management section of Draeger, recalled that during a briefing this April at US Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, “the Marine said their sensors kept burning out on sulfur dioxide.”
To meet the above and other challenges in the defence and adjacent safety and security spaces, Draeger has introduced its X-am 8000. While the device is equipped with a very powerful pump, which can be connected with hoses of up to 45m in length to support area sampling, the real discriminator with the new device is its seven sensors.
The sensors include a photoionization detector to detect hard-to-detect hydrocarbons, as well as an oxygen sensor. “Our oxygen sensor replenishes itself,” the industry veteran explained and added, “ours has a back-end process that uses the power unit to resupply the chemical to the back-end chemical reaction so it won’t burn out. They won’t last forever, but they will last considerably longer than most anything you can imagine. That is probably one of the biggest complaints you hear from users of electronic detectors – how quickly their oxygen sensors burn out.”
The X-am 8000 was approved for use in the US this month.
Marty Kauchak
