You use electricity every day, often without even paying attention to it. Electricity is generated at a power plant and then sent to your home. At thermal power plants, heavy oil is burned in a boiler, and water is changed into steam. Electricity is generated by steam turning a power generation turbine, just like in a steam locomotive.
When heavy oil is burnt, the substances in the oil emit many different gasses. For example, sulfur (S) in heavy oil is oxidized (chemically bonded with oxygen) when it is burned, then emits a gas called sulfur dioxide (SO2). This is an "unwanted gift" of electricity, so to speak. When SO2 is released into the air, it can be not only a cause of air pollution, but can also generate sulfuric acid (H2SO4) as a result of chemical change. If this sulfuric acid gets into the rain, the result is the notorious phenomenon of acid rain.
Thermal power plants take two measures to prevent acid rain. First, they reduce the amount of SO2by burning heavy oil more efficiently. If there still is SO2 emitted, a device called a desulfurizer is used to remove it. The second measure is to check whether or not SO2gas is contained in a power plant's waste gasses.
The stack gas analyzer heavily contributes to these two measures taken at thermal power plants. This device has a gas analyzer called an infrared analyzer, which is a sensor to check the constituents of gasses by detecting molecules' unique reactions to infrared. The device can measure the amount of SO2 molecules in gas emissions of burned heavy oil or power plants' waste gasses. In this way, the stack gas analyzer helps power plants to generate electricity more efficiently, and protect the global environment as a result.
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