I have a tricky question... can I use a water flow sensor for gas? I have a water flow sensor and I want to test it for CO2. Any suggestions? Thanks
Since gases can be compressed, the reading from a liquid flow meter (if it even works with a gas) would be meaningless.
jcneto4991:
I have a tricky question... can I use a water flow sensor for gas? I have a water flow sensor and I want to test it for CO2. Any suggestions? Thanks
Dissolve the CO2 in water ?
If you can do that with a fixed ratio ... somehow?
robtillaart:
Dissolve the CO2 in water ?
You can dissolve tiny amounts of CO2 in water - but how much depends on the CO2 pressure, the pH, the temperature, and probably also whatever else is dissolved in the water. Then after the measurement you have the problem of getting the CO2 out of the water again! It's not a way to measure a gas flow, this accounts for just about any gas flow (the variables may be different, though).
To measure CO2 using a liquid flow sensor you just have to make your CO2 liquid, which is actually quite simple. Take your gas, cool and compress it until you have a liquid, then let that liquid CO2 flow through your sensor. After that you let it expand again (you'll probably have to heat it, it's most efficient to use the waste heat of your compression stage but then the simplicity gets a bit lost). Assuming your flow sensor can handle the temperature and pressure, this should give you pretty accurate flow numbers.