The world’s first hazardous breathing apparatus suitable for more hirsute gentleman will be on show at the forthcoming Sour Oil and Gas Advanced Technology Summit 2014 (Sogat) convention.
Traditional breathing apparatus products are prone to malfunction if the person donning the mask has a beard. This is because they rely on an air tight seal between mask and face in order to operate, which is harder to achieve with a beard.
Camlock have developed a range of breathing apparatus which solve this problem by adding a cowl to the mask.
“Our technology is so good that it can even protect people with facial hair. We carried out tests with the British Standards Institution using volunteers from the London Fire Service, each of whom had facial hair growth, with results that were conclusive,” said John Swatton, business development director at Camlock.
Breathing apparatus such as these could be the difference between life and death for workers at sour gas plants across the Middle East. The sweetening process for sour gas produces the gas hydrogen sulphide (H2S), which can be lethal if it is inhaled.
“Risk assessment studies demonstrated that in such an incident, personnel would only have 75 seconds to don their face masks, yet all of the masks at these facilities took an average of one to two minutes to deploy. Industrial sectors like oil & gas do not use these masks on a daily basis. In the case of a genuine emergency mistakes can be made. With this type of breathing apparatus such problems are eliminated as, once deployed, the head harness automatically expands to fit the wearer,” he said.
