ABSTRACT

Since 1961 the Institute of Gas Technology (IGT) has provided the gas industry with natural gas standards of certified heating value and specific gravity for calibration of calorimeters and gravitometers, respectively. In August of 1984, Gas Research Institute initiated a program at IGT with the ultimate goal of supplying the gas industry with a series of National Bureau of Standards (NBS) traceable calibration gases. This chapter is a summary of the status of that program. The program's goal is to make available several types of calibration standards to the gas industry by the end of 1985. These include a gas chromatography (GC) calibration mixture with direct NBS traceable certification of composition and similarly traceable calorimetric calibration standards. The chapter also lists five mixtures typifying the composition ranges which we considered for a GC calibration gas. A primary requisite for a usable standard is that its composition remain constant during the period of its use.