pCO₂ Information

The Apollo SciTech's Underway pCO₂ system, model AS-P2 has been developed and tested for underway measurements (i.e., real-time while the vessel is sailing) of the partial pressure of CO₂ (pCO₂) and dissolved oxygen (DO) in surface water, atmospheric CO₂ as well as water salinity, temperature and position. Water sample is forced into the equilibrator by a shipboard pump. Equilibrated air is drawn from the equilibrator and dried with an electronic cooling system. It is then quantified with an infrared CO₂ analyzer (LI7000) before sending back to the equilibrator. The shower-head equilibrator is effective (response time 2 min). The equilibrator is completely sealed from the outside room air. It has been tested in both high (up to 4000 µatm) and low (less than 100 µatm) pCO₂ environments.