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.