ELECTRON-CAPTURE DETECTION OF SULFUR GASES IN CARBON-DIOXIDE AT THE PARTS-PER-BILLION LEVEL

A gas chromatograph with an electron capture detector has been used to determine sulphur gases in CO2 at the part-per-billion* level, with particular application to the analysis of coolant from CO2 cooled nuclear reactors. For COS, CS2, CH3SH, H2S and (CH3)2S2 the detector has a sensitivity comparable with the more commonly used flame photometric detector, bu it is much less sensitive towards (CH3)2S and thiophene. In addition, the paper describes a simple method for trapping sulphur gases which might enable detection of sub parts-per-billion levels of sulphur compounds. © 1979.