carbon dioxide filters

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carbon dioxide filters

Postby coffeeboy » Sep 4, 2016 9:42 pm

Hi,

Is anyone aware of a carbon dioxide filtering respirator out there that could be used for caving? (dry caves, not cave diving). or improvised ways for filtering?
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Re: carbon dioxide filters

Postby captnemo » Sep 5, 2016 7:31 pm

I have experienced filtering CO2 out from breathing air in two situations.
1.Fire fighting aboard ships in the military
2. During saturation diving operations offshore

In both cases the primary agent was 'soda sorb' a commercially sold mixture of calcium hydroxide and sodium or potassium hydroxide. This absorbs CO2 but produces heat and a 2lb canister was if memory serves only good for around 30 minutes and you have to replace the oxygen that is being exhaled. This is why re-breathers are complex, and expensive computer controlled devices to ensure the oxygen content is maintained stably. So I don't think a simple 'respirator' is going to do the trick. Try googling scba (self contained breathing apparatus) you'll see most firefighters now use compressed air cylinders as these are easier to maintain, replenish etc and generally safer then dealing with caustic chemicals.
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Re: carbon dioxide filters

Postby Marbry » Sep 10, 2016 3:17 pm

You should also be aware that any times or durations listed would be for the amount of CO2 exhaled by a person.

If you're looking at using it to remove CO2 from say the air in a bad air section of cave where the CO2 percentage could be much higher, your duration could be significantly less. And a given scrubber might not be sufficient to even properly remove that much CO2.

Also in that case you have to take into account that you might not just be dealing with high CO2 but also low O2. Which of course that won't help you with.

You might get some replies with more options if you explained what you're considering in more detail.
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