Protecting America with Specialty Gases

Prior to 9/11, environmental concerns largely focused on monitoring, controlling and reducing the pollution the industrial revolution had set in motion. From a specialty gas point of view, our efforts at Scott focused primarily on developing the calibration gases (http://www.scottgas.com) needed to accurately measure the emission of hazardous materials into our atmosphere. Over the span of 40+ years, we got very good at this, becoming the world's leading supplier of EPA protocol gases used to calibrate Continuous Emission Monitors. Essentially, our role as specialty gas experts involved helping to protect our country from the unintentional health and environmental hazards of our industrialized society. Call us naive, but we never imagined we'd be asked to develop calibration gases to protect against deliberate attempts to destroy our society itself. Certainly we were familiar with a growing list of known TICs (toxic industrial chemicals) and the need to accurately monitor them. They are the unhappy byproducts of industrialization. After 9/11 however, a new acronym crept into our everyday vocabulary: CWAs (chemical warfare agents). New Homeland Security Products Today we are asked with increasing frequency to develop calibration gases for a new type of application. The U.S. military and numerous instrument manufacturers now ask us to develop calibration gases for instruments that are currently used or under development for detection and defense against various CWAs that enemy forces might use against us. Hence, Scott is developing a growing line of Homeland Security Products. Some of these are "standard" mixtures such as cyanogen chloride, phosgene and hydrogen cyanide. Other times our R&D and Technical Services groups work with customers to develop custom products to meet highly specialized application requirements. Frankly speaking, considering their application, Homeland Security gas mixtures are products we'd just as soon not make. But the need for them is very real and so in addition to the markets we've traditionally served, we now also focus our technology on creating dependable products to help defend and protect our country. Let's all hope for a time when we can retire these products as being no longer needed. For more information about Scott Homeland Security gas mixtures, contact our Technical Services group at 800-21-SCOTT. Scott Specialty Gases, a leading global manufacturer of specialty gases located in Plumsteadville, PA. More information on the company can be found at http://www.scottgas.com. This article is copyrighted by Scott Gases. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part and may not be posted on other websites, without the express written permission of the author who may be contacted via email at scottgas@digitalbrandexpressions.com.