World first ECCR with galvanic sensor ‘Scuba Lung’
Text: Jan Willem Bech
30-06-2022
In the year I was born, 1961, a 27-year-old student in Massachusetts tested his revolutionary invention and found it successful. Alan Krasberg was able to build an oxygen sensor using a piece of gold (said to be a gold filling from his father). The knowledge of deep diving systems at that time was very limited. Only a very small number of devices that worked on a similar principle were known (Marion and Finney rebreather). The Electrolung that often gets the predicate “first electronic closed rebreather” was built only 5 years later. Krasberg apparently already knew about the effect of helium in a breathing mixture to replace the nitrogen. In his rebreather, an automatic diluent switch was built in that switched the diluent gas from air to oxygen at depth with a hydrostatic pressure sensor. The very optimistic report in Popular Mechanics, which can be read below, speaks of diving depths of ‘maybe’ 2000 ft (610 m).
Krasberg must have had foresight, because a few years later a Heliox mixture was used to reach a diving depth of 600 metres at the French Comex. After his student days in Chicago in the 1950s, Krasberg joined the army, after which he studied at Harvard University and graduated in astrophysics. Deep diving kept his interest and after experimenting, he managed to build his first working oxygen sensor. Together with J.H. Emerson, he further developed his concept. Emerson was later taken over by Westinghouse Corporation Undersea. Krasberg offered his invention to the US Navy, which, with much scepticism, could not believe that this small company was capable of such a large development. After testing, Krasberg was allowed to supply more units and his invention ended up as a first in the Man-in – the Sea programme.
The story of this development has been described in an extraordinary way and shows knowledge of the subject matter. A very enjoyable article here at the bottom of this page to read and an unimaginably clever achievement by this young student.
Later, Krasberg became a big name in the professional diving industry where he made an enormous contribution to the development of deep diving systems and diving materials.
Alan Krasberg
Alan Krasberg is founder and former owner of General Diving Systems in Aberdeen, Scotland, which he sold in 1989. Krasberg started diving O2 rebreathers in 1947 at the age of 13, and one year later built his own rebreather. He ran the first commercial saturation diving operations for Westinghouse in 1965 and provided mixed-gas diving tables for several companies. In 1962 he built his first Closed Circuit mixed-gas rebreather ‘Scuba Lung’. He designed his first semi-closed rebreathers, with topside PO2 readout, used on the Westinghouse diving operations in 1965. The Westinghouse divers logged a total of 6000 diving hours using his design. He designed and built the first surface-loop, closed-circuit system for commercial diving, a technology still in use today. Krasberg dived his O2 rebreathers until the 90’s in his off-time.
Little can be found about the life of Alan Krasberg, it would be nice if this page would grow in honour and glory of the inventor of the modern ECCR rebreather.
Therebreathersite was founded by Jan Willem Bech in 1999. After a diving career of many years, he decided to start technical diving in 1999. He immediately noticed that at that time there was almost no website that contained the history of closed breathing systems. The start for the website led to a huge collection that offered about 1,300 pages of information until 2019. In 2019, a fresh start was made with the website now freely available online for everyone. Therebreathersite is a source of information for divers, researchers, technicians and students. I hope you enjoy browsing the content!