Are airborne particles affecting your productivity? Do you need to know what size range your particle counter should cover?

Particulate and aerosol contamination comes in many shapes and sizes. For several industries, there are cleanroom standards that dictate what size particles you must monitor. But for general indoor air quality and production processes like paint spray or other coating processes, there are often no guidelines. I recently spoke with a representative of a headlight manufacturing company. They were interested in purchasing a particle counter system. They apply coating to the headlights using a spray technique. The process sounds very similar to that used in a paint spray booth. The headlight company wished to minimize their production of defective products. They had pollen and other large dust particles that were causing product defects. From past experience I know that pollen can range from 10 to 100 microns. The sizes of different dusts can be seen in the table below. At their particle size range, I suggested that they use a class 100,000 cleanroom as a basic starting point. This is the least stringent cleanroom classification. IAQ particle counters may also be helpful for this size range of particulate contamination. (Click the button to enlarge.)