Humidifier for RPC gas mixture for bakelite RPCs

Bakelite RPCs are very sensitive to environmental parameters, especially the relative humidity (RH) and temperature. As the name suggests, bakelite RPCs are basically fabricated from high quality 2 mm thick high pressure laminates (HPLs). For operating the RPCs in avalanche mode of operation, a typical mixture of R134a. Iso-butane and SF6 is used in a particular combination of 96.2 : 3.5 : 0.3 in order to achieve an optimal signal output. If the gas mixture inside the gas-gaps has a different humidity, which in case of dry gases is typically of the order of 0.4 - 0.5 ppm, then a drastic change in the humidity inside and outside of the bakelite sheet starts affecting the resistivity of bakelite which in turn has an adverse effect in its performance characteristics. Due to variation of the bakelite resistivity, electric field inside the gas gaps of RPC changes in an uncontrolled fashion which is very unsatisfactory in the proportional mode of operation. Simple estimation for RPC operating at high rate (∼ 1 kHz/cm2) shows that variation in resistivity can cause noticeable voltage drop in electrodes which is resulted by the flow of current across the plates