Applications
In the oil industry katharometers have been used for a long time for hydrocarbon detection but have a history of unstable calibrations in non-stationary oil-related applications. In normal drilling practice, 5 hydrocarbon gases, plus a couple of non-hydrocarbon gases, are expected in normal samples resulting in cross-talk between the methane absorption line and the ethane. Hence the current use of flame ionization detectors.
Katharometers are used medically in lung function testing equipment and in gas chromatography. The results are slower to obtain compared to a mass spectrometer, but the device is inexpensive, and has good accuracy when the gases in question are known, and it is only the proportion that must be determined.
Monitoring of hydrogen purity in hydrogen-cooled turbogenerators.
Read more about this topic: Thermal Conductivity Detector