Use Arduino to check for CH4 (Methane) in Atex area

Projects General Guidance
1

Hi,

I was looking at the MQ-4 type sensor connected to an Arduino to detect CH4 (Methane). The problem is that I need to measure this gas in an Atex zone. Basically I can't have a situation where the gas would be able to ignite. I was wondering if anyone had done anything like this before

Thanks, Conor

2

The TGS units have a mesh housing specifically to ensure safety against causing ignition.

In addition, they only heat sufficiently to activate the sensor and to cause equilibrium with the atmospheric concentration by driving off the adsorbed molecules or reaction products.

3

Thanks for that. Is there a certain one that you can recommend? If you could then I could look at the data sheet on it

4

Sorry, talking through my hat. No further information.

(I haven't bought - among the other things on eBay - one of these detectors. Sitting in my drawer here - I think - is a little "wand" I built with one of these devices over thirty years ago, a plastic conduit pipe with the sensor at one end, a phone jack at the other and containing a no doubt long-since defunct AA Ni-Cd battery. Charged with a three-point phone plug, when a two-point headphone was plugged in it would activate the circuit and "sniff" out gas like a Geiger counter.)