HF is frequently used in the manufacturing of gasoline, refrigerants, herbicides, pharmaceuticals, and various other industrial applications. In petrochemical industry HF is mainly used as an alkylation catalyst to form alkylates from isobutanes as it is a strong acid. It is used as etchant and cleaner in many industires from semiconductor silicon chip manufacturing to glass and households manufacturing. Many industrial compounds such as teflon, fluoropolymers, fluorocarbons, and freon are prepared using HF. Also pharmaceutical industry uses HF widely in pharmaceutical products synthesis and many pharmaceuticals contain fluorine.

Hydrogen Fluoride (HF) is a corrosive, colorless gas that turns into hydrofluoric acid when dissolved in water that extremely dangerous for the environment. It has  a pungent smell and very toxic by inhalation. HF can cause serious burns in case of contamination, as well damage the eyes, skin, nose throat and respiratory system. Inhalation of low concentration of HF can cause eye, nose and throat irritation. Systemic effects including nausea, vomiting, gastric pain and cardiac problems can occur from all routes of exposure in short or long term. Short term exposure limit for HF is 3 ppm. But strong irritating odour can be smelled at concentrations of 0.04ppm. Due to its serious danger, workplace air must be continously monitored via HF gas detectors to eliminate those short or long term problems as symptoms may be delayed.

In Oil rafineries HF poses two safety hazards in the process. There is an explosion risk as large amounts of hydrocarbons are processed in alkylation. Also there is toxic hazards in case of unconrolled HF release to atmosphere. When used with metal or released accidentally HF reacts with almost any metal in presence of humidity and produce hydrogen H2 which is highly flammable gas. All other industries may have similar toxic and flammable gas hazards. Hence it is important to know all details and potential risks in the environment to eliminate problems. It may be necessary to use HF gas detector together with flammable gas detectors depending of the process details.

Prosense can help you idendify necessary detectors to provide safety for all defined risks. Prosense HF detectors provide sensitive and timely detection of HF in 0-10PPM range with 0.1PPM resolution.

Features:

• 4-20mA Analog Output

• RS485 Modbus RTU Output

• Relays for local alarming with adjustable alarm levels

• ATEX and IECEx certifications

• SS316 HF sensor head with calibration certificate

• Wall mounting kit

• Simple one-person calibration