The US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s mine safety and health research division in Pittsburgh has taken on a contract for Simtars’ Safegas system for its own research purposes.

As one of the world’s largest safety and health research organisations, NIOSH works to improve the safety and health of American workers. Its mine safety and health research division has been a leading influence on mine safety throughout the world since 1910 when it first began operation as the then Bureau of Mines.

“We are really happy that NIOSH has gone with our system and the fact that they are going to be demonstrating the use of this system to the US industry,” Simtars Occupational Hygiene, Environment and Chemistry Centre manager Darren Brady told International Longwall News.

“Hopefully it is a technique the rest of the industry will adopt.”

Under the contract Simtars will supply NIOSH with its Safegas, 30-point, tube bundle monitoring system which has been developed in partnership with the Australian arm of German process measurement technology experts Sick Maihak.

The system works with a bank of pumps which continuously draw gas samples to the surface from monitoring points located in a sealed area or an active goaf.

Systems generally monitor 30 points but can be expanded to include more .

The samples pass through a bank of analysers which will measure carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane and oxygen.

The Safegas tube bundle system is commonly used in underground coal mines in New South Wales and Queensland but only one other US coal mine uses a similar system.

NIOSH researchers are looking to prevent explosions within sealed areas of coal mines through monitoring the gas levels, recognising the capabilities of tube bundle systems was a way to realise this.

NIOSH’s tender stated it required a continuous monitoring system which could draw samples through tubes from deep within sealed areas of coal mines and from the active parts of an underground coal mine.

Brady said NIOSH found the way the tube bundle system could take samples from within sealed areas of coal mines was an attractive feature of the system.

The contract is a one-off sale of Safegas to the Pittsburgh Research Laboratory but Simtars will be training NIOSH personnel on how to use the system.

Brady said the use of tube bundles for gas monitoring was not routinely practised in the United States but with the recent sale he hoped it would be more widely accepted.

Queensland Mines and Energy Minister Geoff Wilson congratulated Simtars on the contract stating it confirmed Queensland was a world leader in underground coal mine gas monitoring.