Visiting Beijing Labor Protection Institute

The Beijing Municipal Institute of Labor Protection (hereinafter referred to as “Labor Insurance Institute”) was established in 1956. It is the first comprehensive institute for occupational safety and health sciences in China, and is the earliest research institution in the field of safety, health and environmental science research in China. one. As a research institute that mainly engages in applied research, how did labor insurance institutions embark on the road to instrument development? Which instruments have been developed by the labor insurance research team? What are the future trends of related instruments? The deputy chief engineer of the Institute of Labor Protection, Professor Hu Hao, combined his 20 years of scientific research experience and answered questions for us.

At the same time, Hu Hao is also a national standard for GB27630-2011 Guidelines for Air Quality Assessment in Passenger Vehicles and HJ/T400-2007 Methods for Sampling Volatile Organic Compounds and Aldehydes and Ketones in the Air of Vehicles. The main drafter, what are his views and opinions on standard setting? For this reason, Instrument Information Network recently conducted an exclusive interview with the researcher.

The gas sampling and testing instruments produced by Labor Insurance have a high reputation in the field of indoor air detection. For the original intention of the laboratories to develop the instrument, Hu's answer is two words - demand! "At a judging panel, a qualified old expert asked me straightforwardly: 'Why did labor protection institutions develop instruments?' The answer I gave was: 'We are people who use instruments, but when we do research, We found that it was impossible to find instruments that meet our requirements....'."

"Instrument manufacturers usually have a technology to develop the equipment and then look for the demand. On the contrary, it is because of the demand, to look for technology, to find unsuccessful, can only be their own." Hu said: " The reason why the instrument can not meet our needs is not its detection capability, but the application method and instrument applicability can not meet the needs of our industry. For example, the most prominent feature of toxic and hazardous gas detection is sudden and dangerous. Therefore, we pay more attention to portability, speed, and high sensitivity. Therefore, we need a portable gas detection instrument that is both fast and highly sensitive.

“In fact, all the labor insurance related to the fine traditions of instrument development. Researchers will consciously and constantly through the network, literature and other channels in a timely manner to understand and track the latest international detection technology in the field. In a time when manufacturers and users do not communicate so easily, for new instruments, researchers must do three things – use, dismantling, and reduction! Until now, these traditions are still preserved. It can be said that the development of instruments is also to this Kind of traditional inheritance," said Hu.

Since the 1980s until now, in order to meet the needs of industrial applications, labor insurance institutes have successively developed gas detection instruments such as gas detection tubes, electrochemical sensors, and portable gas chromatographs.

(1) Gas Detection Tube

In the 1960s, Labor Insurance began researching and developing gas detection tubes on the basis of gas detection tubes from the former Soviet Union. This is also the earliest involved labor insurance institute and is still producing the simplest gas detection equipment.

“The gas detection tube is a rapid gas detection device that appeared during the Second World War. A gas detection tube can only detect one gas at a time. The resulting value is an estimate and is used only once, but it has a simple and fast operation. It is portable, has no need for calibration and maintenance within 1 year, and is quantitatively analyzed, etc. Now, the gas detection tube is still the world's largest portable gas rapid detection equipment with sales volume of nearly 400 million per year in North America alone. ."

“Unfortunately, the annual sales volume of gas detection tubes in China is still less than 4 million. This convenient and easy-to-use detection technology has not been widely used in China. Academician Wei Fusheng once said that the detection tube is the best emergency gas. Rapid detection technology, we very much agree with this view, we very much hope that this simple device can play a greater role in the field of occupational safety and health gas detection in China."

(2) Electrochemical sensors

With the development of electronic technology, electrochemical sensor technology has been widely used in the field of gas detection. At that time, the Institute of Labor Protection introduced electrochemical sensor technology from Dräger Germany and conducted research and development on this basis. In the 1980s, a direct-reading gas detector with electrochemical sensor technology was introduced. The Labor Insurance Institute is also the first domestic unit to introduce such an instrument.

"Electrochemical sensors have the advantages of being portable, fast, capable of detecting multiple gases at the same time and having a long lifetime (usually about two years for sensors); their disadvantages are the need for timing corrections. The standard gas used for calibration is usually Hazardous chemicals are not easy to obtain (Electrochemical sensor instrument calibration frequency is generally once a week, on-line detection equipment has a higher correction frequency and needs to be calibrated every day or even every hour.) Currently, gas detectors based on electrochemical sensors are used in the field of gas detection. The most extensive instrument."

(3) Portable Gas Chromatograph

Because gas rapid detection tubes and electrochemical sensors are not effective in the detection of organic gases, gas chromatography has become the first choice for the detection of such gases. The initial gas chromatographs were basically laboratory bench instruments. Therefore, portable gas chromatographs became the next R&D target for labor insurance institutes.

The Institute's first portable gas chromatograph was introduced in the 1990s. It is a portable GC-TCD developed for power plant measurements of SF6 gas.

In 1991, the National Natural Science Foundation of China undertook a research project on "Smell gas sampling and determination methods". In order to determine odorous gases, a solid adsorption/thermal desorption device was developed and used in combination with a gas chromatography/mass spectrometer. It was very advanced at the time.

In the late 1990s, labor insurance researchers found that the portable photo-ionized gas detector (PID) technology has a large application defect: it can only measure the total amount and cannot identify specific harmful components. In order to achieve the purpose of analyzing specific components of gas, the labor insurance company cooperated with China Huarui RAE to add a column for PID, and introduced a portable photoionization gas chromatograph.

In 2005, Labor Insurance and General Analysis jointly undertook the development and research of portable GC-FID supported by the Beijing Science and Technology Commission.

Teacher Hu said: "Although portable instruments currently may not be comparable in accuracy to laboratory bench instruments, I believe that with the development of related technologies, portable gas detection instruments will be developed vigorously because of their market demand. Big, until now, the demand for such instruments in the market is still not well met!”

In 2006, the Labor Insurance Institute and the Institute of Acoustics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences jointly undertook the national 863 project, “Sound Wave Acceleration and Rapid Gas Chromatography Coupled Technology and Instrument Development”, making the Institute’s instrument development enter the frontier field.

After many years of hard work, the equipment research and development of the Labor Insurance Institute has achieved good results, but the bottleneck that restricts its development has also become increasingly prominent. “Industrialization is a big problem for us. As a research institute, the Labor Insurance Institute does not have a corporate management system, and it does not involve a lot in industrialization and marketing. This may also be a common problem faced by many research institutes.” Speaking further: "We have technology, but we can't promote it well and apply it. This is a loss!"

“Scientific research units have a solid foundation in the research of new technologies and new instruments, and instrument companies have their own unique advantages in industrialization and markets. If they can complement each other, they can achieve a multiplier effect. The Labor Insurance Institute welcomes the instrument. The company has come to cooperate with us in instrument application, method development, industrialization, and promotion.”

In 2012, the Institute of Labor Safety undertook the scientific task of the State Administration of Work Safety, “Comparative Testing of On-Site Rapid Detection Technologies in Highly Toxious Work Sites”, which is a portable instrument capable of on-site detection of inorganic gases, organic gases, and heavy metals in the air at home and abroad. Comparing with the existing national standard testing methods, it provides a technical basis for the country to formulate on-site law enforcement inspection policies for occupational hazards. Now that the project is in the start-up phase, Hu said the Institute of Labor Safety welcomes the participation of a large number of instrument manufacturers. The results of this task will provide technical support for the rapid application of on-site rapid detection instruments.