Method of detecting the presence of moisture in a gas

Abstract

A method of cleaning atmosphere gas used in manufacturing high-purity fine particles of reactive metals comprises the steps of: letting the moisture existing in the atmosphere gas condense into dew droplets using a cryogenic cooling medium; removing the moisture defined by the dew droplets through dissociation by letting it react with metallic Na that has been brought into contact with the dew droplets; generating a vapor of metallic Na in the atmosphere gas so as to remove the moisture still persisting in the atmosphere gas; further removing through dissociation the moisture still persisting in the atmosphere gas by letting it react with Na vapor that has been generated and dispersed into the atmosphere gas; letting the atmosphere gas cleaned of moisture come into contact with black barium powder; and detecting the presence of moisture in the atmosphere gas through a change in color of the black barium powder. The apparatus for practicing the method comprises two devices: one is a Na vapor generator and the other is a tract amount moisture detector.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.