scope:

ISO 6145 comprises a series of International Standards dealing with various dynamic methods used for the preparation of calibration gas mixtures. This part of ISO 6145 describes a method and preparation system using piston pumps. The mixture composition and its associated uncertainty are based on calibration of the piston pumps by dimensional measurements.

The calibration gas mixtures prepared using this method consist of two or more components, prepared from pure gases or other gas mixtures using gas-mixing pumps. Such gas-mixing pumps contain at least two piston pumps, each driven with a defined ratio of strokes, and appropriate accessories for gas feeding and mixture homogenization.

This part of ISO 6145 is applicable only to mixtures of gaseous or totally vaporized components including corrosive gases, as long as these components neither react with each other nor with the wetted surfaces of the mixing pump. The use of gas mixtures as parent gases is covered as well. Multi-component gas mixtures and multi-step dilution procedures are included in this International Standard as they are considered to be special cases of the preparation of two-component mixtures.

This part of ISO 6145 describes a method of preparing calibration gas mixtures whose composition is expressed in volume fractions. The necessary equations and associated uncertainty evaluation to express the gas composition in amount-of-substance fractions are given in Annex A.

With this method, provided that sufficient quality assurance and control measures are taken, calibration gas mixtures can be prepared with a relative expanded uncertainty of 0,5 % (coverage factor k = 2) in the volume fraction. Numerical examples showing that under specified conditions smaller uncertainties are attainable are given in Annexes B through D.

Using this method, dilution ratios of 1:10 000 can be achieved in discrete increments. Lower fractions (down to 1 × 10−8) can be achieved by multi-stage dilution or by the use of gas mixtures as input gases. Final mixture flow rates of 5 l/h to 500 l/h can be realized depending on the equipment used.