While real-time dust monitoring has become common practice in many industries throughout the world, some real-time dust monitors have stood out as having some KEY technical advantages over others. Many real-time dust monitors are limited to PM10 measurements, PM2.5 measurements or maybe a handful of PM fraction measurements if you are lucky, however some monitors are capable of high resolution particle counting, particle sizing and simultaneous mass measurements giving the end user an incredible visual representation of what particles are really in their air at any given time.
Information is power and you can’t fix what you don’t know. While many dust monitors may provide one or two PM values, that’s all you get. PM10 for example, is all particles less than 10um, however where is the peak of these particles (ie: 100nm, 500nm, 2um, 5um, 9um) and what is the size distribution. The smaller dust particles get, the lighter they get and the further they can travel in the air from the emission source. The smaller particles get the more dangerous they can potentially be to human health and thus the more information dust monitor users can obtain during measurements the better.
Example of countless articles on the internet relating to fine particle exposure.
https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/indoors/air/pmq_a.htm
Imagine if there was a machine in your workplace or some part of your manufacturing process that was generating potentially dangerous fine particles at a particular particle size. Your typical PM10 monitor (particles less than 10um) MAY be capable of measuring it and simply adding it to the PM10 value, however wouldn’t it be great and very useful if you could track this source down and see exactly what particle size is being generated.
So, if your are currently undertaking or planning to do undertake particle / dust monitoring on your site (indoors or outdoors) and you really want to be able to see what’s in the air over a wide particle size distribution, then feel free to contact LAF Technologies Pty Ltd. The company offers some a wide range of high quality, German made monitoring systems and instruments capable of measuring particles from as low of 2nm and up to 35um in size, while also providing high resolution size distribution and number concentration data.
