Acidic gas emissions from electrical insulation and their influence on electronic components

The authors assess the influence of a range of acidic gases on the corrosivity and electrical performance of a representative group of electronic components. In general the extent of visible corrosion parallels the incidence of electrical faults, hence if corrosion can be seen an electronic circuit must be suspect. The concentrations of gas required for component deterioration have been identified and these enable the significance of a potentiometric materials test for acid gas analysis to be realized because component deterioration can be related to the aqueous solution pH of acidic gases. If this holds for other gases not considered here, application of the results to other cases should merely involving calculating the effective pH values for the scenario and materials test of interest and comparing them