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Identification and measurement of the combustible gases that occur in the gaseous metabolic products of sheep

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

Joseph W. H. Lugg
Joseph W. H. Lugg
Affiliation:
The Nutrition Laboratory of the Division of Animal Health and Nutrition of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, University of Adelaide
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Extract

Measurements of the gaseous metabolism of sheep in this laboratory are conducted by drawing air through a sealed chamber that contains the animal, sampling the effluent air, and analysing the sample for its carbon dioxide increase and its oxygen deficit. As the analysis is dependent upon the measured fraction of nitrogen with rare gases, and particularly in respect of the oxygen deficiency this fraction must be known rather precisely. It is of course assumed that the animal in no way changes the quantities of nitrogen and rare gases passing through the chamber, but the analysis is incomplete if any gases or vapours other than carbon dioxide and water are given off.

It is well known that considerable quantities of methane, and possibly some hydrogen, are produced by ruminants, and some forms of gas analysis apparatus include a device designed to measure the concentration of methane in the sample. The device, as used in the apparatus of Carpenter & Fox (1926), consists of a platinum spiral heated electrically, the carbon dioxide resulting from combustion being measured volumetrically in the ordinary way, together with the O2 consumed. Experience with the device in this laboratory has led to its abandonment and gravimetric methods are now employed instead.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , October 1938 , pp. 688 - 694
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1938

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References

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