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Document No. 715-7000
Revision E
Page 10 of 63
Purge Procedures to follow when changing tanks and/or regulators.
Important!
Purge Procedure Required before Use
Please follow purge instructions below to ensure gas purity. Failure to follow these
instructions may introduce potentially harmful contaminants into the patient’s
breathing gas or may affect the monitoring analyzer’s accuracy by introduction of
contaminants into the calibration gas.
Warning:
Perform cylinder connection and purge procedures in well-ventilated areas
to prevent inadvertent exposure to nitric oxide or nitrogen dioxide gas. Follow your
facility’s safety procedures for handling medical gas cylinders.
Purge Procedures for use with Medical Gas Regulators:
1.
Connect cylinder to a matching CGA nitric oxide or nitrogen dioxide
regulator only.
2.
Open, then immediately close the cylinder valve.
3.
Release (bleed) all of the gas from the regulator.
4.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 four more times for a total of five purge cycles.
5.
Leave the regulator installed until it is time to change to a new cylinder.
6.
Repeat the purge procedure any time a regulator is reattached.
Any time a regulator is installed on a tank or cylinder of compressed gas, certain precautions
must be followed. This is to prevent contamination of the gas in the tank and in the system by
air that is trapped in the dead space of the regulator and fittings. To eliminate the possibility of
the oxygen in this air reacting with the nitric oxide to form nitrogen dioxide in the system, the
regulator and fittings must be purged before use. The valve on the tank must not be opened
and left open until the regulator is purged. The stainless steel line must also be purged prior to
connection to the AeroNOx
.
CAUTION!
Should there be a sudden need to change therapy tanks, a second tank
should always be purged and ready for immediate use. Perform the
purge procedure immediately upon installation of a new regulator.
Although the dead space volume in the regulator and hose assembly is physically small, if it had
been exposed to room air for a period of time it will contain sufficient oxygen to convert a
significant amount of nitric oxide to nitrogen dioxide.