Measuring CO2 Output

[madiiz]

Hi,

Just wondering, what are some possible ways to measure CO2 respiratory output (of a single person)? I'm talking basic, yet effective ways to measure, for example, liters/hour or cm3/minute or something along those lines. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks.

[barretttomlinson]

Hi,

Here are a few ways to determine your metabolism rate:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5834219/

http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/121/11/1897.pdf

The subject you may be interested in is called capnography. You may want to explore this thoroughly. Here is a site that discusses it:

http://www.capnography.com/Homepage/HomepageM.htm


You may be interested in these google book reviews:

http://books.google.com/books?id=-3yIUQ ... lt#PPP1,M1

http://books.google.com/books?id=jl7ni7 ... &ct=result

My impression is that most professional CO2 analyzers in use today use a combination of optical infrared sensors to measure CO2 concentration and a small flow meter to allow calcuation of total CO2 in the expired air. Older methods that might be more useful to you would have bubbled the expired air through alkaline(calcium or sodium hydroxide)solutions to absorb the carbon dioxide, then either filtered off the precipitated calcium carbonate, dried and weighed it to determine the total carbon dioxide absorbed, or done a titration with acid to determine the amount of carbonate.

This sounds like it could be a really fascinating project. I wish you the best of luck with it!

Barrett Tomlinson