CARBON MONOXIDE: FORMATION, DETECTION AND HAZARDS 0

CARBON MONOXIDE: FORMATION, DETECTION AND HAZARDS

Or any other title you wish

Your Name

Your College
 CARBON MONOXIDE: FORMATION, DETECTION AND HAZARDS 1

Introduction

The reaction of carbon and oxygen normally produces carbon dioxide CO2. However, even under

normal circumstances a certain amount of carbon monoxide CO, a product of an incomplete oxidation, is

also formed. Under favourable conditions, though, its share goes up. These conditions include insufficient

amount of oxygen (for instance, when carbon containing substances burn with an insufficient air supply)

and high speed of the reaction (for instance, in an automobile engine). Like CO2, it is a colourless and

odourless gas, slightly lighter than air, but, unlike carbon dioxide, it is deadly dangerous to all warm-

blooded animals and, therefore, to people due to its aggressive behavior in the body. The fact that it is

impossible to detect by odour or taste, like some poisonous gases, renders it especially dangerous.

Therefore, its properties, ways of its detection and prevention of accidents leading to carbon monoxide

exposure are of a vital importance.

Health risk factors

The danger carbon monoxide presents is due to the fact that it binds to haemoglobin, forcing out

oxygen. Although its toxicity had long been discovered, its mechanism was first explained by a French

physician Claude Bernard in the middle of the XIX century. CO is bound by haemoglobin approximately

200 times more tightly than oxygen. This results in asphyxiation, caused both by insufficient supply of

oxygen to the body tissues and prevention of oxygen absorption. The symptoms of carbon monoxide

poisoning develop from fatigue, dizziness and headache to impaired vision and coordination, nausea, feeling

of suffocation, chest pain, loss of consciousness and death (Blumenthal 2001). The symptoms may appear

after exposure to as little as 1/1000 of 1 percent of carbon monoxide in air – the level which may easily be

achieved in a poorly ventilated room.

Carbon monoxide hazards in urban environment

Carbon monoxide is quite common in everyday environment, forming as a by-product during the

process of combustion of carbon-containing substances and as a main product when the combustion takes

place with an insufficient oxygen supply. The risk grows when the process takes place indoors with little or
 CARBON MONOXIDE: FORMATION, DETECTION AND HAZARDS 2

no ventilation. Thus, all indoor appliances, such as wood stoves and fireplaces, gas stoves and heaters,

generators and gasoline-powered equipment are a potential source of this deadly gas. The risk becomes a

certain danger if the appliances are improperly adjusted, are not inspected and tuned up annually by a

specialist or do not meet safety requirements. More than 50% of carbon monoxide poisoning cases happen

at home (Green). Another possible source of CO is car exhausts in a closed garage. Therefore the engine

must always be started when the door is open. Attached garages present a serious danger unless they are

properly insulated.

Proper ventilation and above all prevention measures, such as inspection of potentially hazardous

objects, such as heating appliances, stoves, chimneys and flues, greatly reduce the risk of carbon monoxide

poisoning accidents. Besides, carbon monoxide detectors are now available, enabling people to detect the

gas opportunely and take necessary measures.

If the accident has taken place, the victim should be moved into fresh air. Further medical aid,

usually involving administration of oxygen, should be provided by specialists.

Carbon monoxide hazards in mining

Carbon monoxide presents the greatest danger under circumstances when proper ventilation and

evacuation are impossible, namely, underground. The danger grows as carbon monoxide may be found in

coal pockets rather than be produced gradually, when a gradual development of symptoms warns a person

of the danger. Carbon monoxide pockets were formed as a result of coal reacting slowly with a available

oxygen in the mine, as the amount of oxygen is generally insufficient to produce carbon dioxide. Besides, it

appears as a by-product after methane explosion, when methane stored within the coal reacts violently with

air oxygen.

Aware of the danger, miners used canaries as living carbon monoxide detectors underground. A

small bird was far more sensitive to the presence of carbon monoxide in the air, and any signs of distress

from it were a signal for miners to hurry to leave the mine. Even if the bird died, people usually had enough

time to evacuate to the surface before inhaling dangerous doses of carbon monoxide.
 CARBON MONOXIDE: FORMATION, DETECTION AND HAZARDS 3

The use of canary as a CO detector may seem inadmissibly cruel. It certainly was cruel. Fortunately,

in the end of 1986 BBC reported: “New electronic detectors will replace the bird because they are said to be

cheaper in the long run and more effective in indicating the presence of pollutants in the air otherwise

unnoticed by miners” (BBC 1986).

On the other hand, birds saved hundreds of human lives, which would have been lost, as without this

primitive and unquestionably cruel, but necessary measure people would have been unaware of the presence

of CO in the air and would not have enough time to reach the surface. Cynical as it may seem,

arithmetically the death of one bird was worth the lives of many people. Besides, canaries were not regarded

as inanimate CO detectors. They were ingrained in the culture and were treated kindly by the miners (BBC

1986).

Without the bird the unsuspecting miners could breathe in carbon monoxide until they felt dizzy and

drowsy, lost consciousness and died. The accident was discovered when no carts of coal had come up for a

certain time from a drift. When a person went down to investigate and found dead miners, he would

immediately run out as the poisonous gas was still present in the drift.

Again, this was an inevitable evil. There was a probability that some of the miners were only

unconscious, but their exposure to the gas lasted usually too long and probably they would not survive even

if evacuated promptly. Moreover, carbon monoxide is not filtered by a common activated coal filter.

Therefore, any attempts of rescue would probably lead to more deaths.

Conclusion

Fortunately, now carbon monoxide effects on human body is fairly well studied to reduce the death

toll. However, many people still die through their own or others’ criminal negligence. Utmost carefulness

and alertness are required both at home and at work to avoid grave consequences, and the main guideline

should be “Prevention is better than cure.”

 CARBON MONOXIDE: FORMATION, DETECTION AND HAZARDS 4

Coal mine canaries made redundant (1986 December 30). BBC news. Retrieved from

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/30/newsid_2547000/2547587.stm

Blumenthal, I. (June 2001). "Carbon monoxide poisoning". J R Soc Med (The Royal Society of

Medicine) 94(6): 270–272. 

Green W. (n.d.) An Introduction to Indoor Air Quality: Carbon Monoxide (CO). United States

Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/iaq/co.html

Wilkinson L.J (2007). Carbon Monoxide – The Silent Killer. In Rosemary H. Waring, Glyn B.

Steventon, Steve C. Mitchell (2007). Molecules of death. Imperial College Press.