Facilities managers, usually focused on production issues, assume if the air doesn't look dirty, it's not a big problem. However, air inside most manufacturing and fabrication plants is filled with contaminants like smoke, dust, oil mist and fumes. Left unchecked, minute particles can cause damage to servomotors, CNC drives and the sensitive electronic controls of capital equipment.

Reduce Equipment Maintenance
Proper air filtration systems are increasingly important to keep plant equipment running properly. Dirty air can greatly reduce running time and needlessly add to maintenance costs.

Increase Productivity
Control of dust and smoke is also key to maintaining high worker productivity; studies show that a cleaner work place is a more productive one. Keeping the air clean helps improve employee morale and reduces absenteeism, positively impacting overall productivity.

Decrease Health Risks
Keeping a lid on employee insurance costs means the health hazards of air pollution must be minimized. Workers' concerns over in-plant air quality, the potential for lawsuits over health issues, plus regulatory agency requirements suggest paying close attention to airborne contaminants.

Know Your Application Before Choosing
Finding the right air filtering system requires balancing many factors with no single type of filter system best for all applications. Selection must be based on the type and quantity of contaminants in the air. Experience shows that cost differences between types of filter systems essentially comes down to a comparison of overall maintenance costs - pay for labor to clean filters, or pay for disposable filters.

What is Clean Air?

"Clean Air" is a matter of degree. Air that is adequately clean for an office environment would be much too dirty for an industrial clean room area. Even air that is free of visible particulate (greater than 10 microns) may contain many smaller particles that result in high maintenance costs for a conventional air conditioning system.

• Dust Holding Capacity is a measure of the weight of dirt a filter can hold before it reaches a predetermined final resistance. A filter with 100 grams dust holding capacity should last approximately twice as long as a 50 gram filter under the same conditions.

• Arrestance is a measure of air cleaning based on weight of dirt collected. If 100 grams of particulate reach a filter and 80 grams are caught, the arrestance level is 80%.

Note the table above how a filter with an arrestance of 99% for synthetic dust may have an efficiency of only 80-85% for atmospheric dust - even less for smoke particles.

Dirt getting through the filter is what damages equipment. A 90% efficiency filter allows 10% of the dirt to pass through; an 80% filter lets 20% through--only half as efficient. Even a 99% filter is less than 1/30th as effective as a filter with an efficiency of 99.97%.

Double the Surface Area -- Triple the Filter's Life

When discussing filter maintenance, the following axioms about filter service life are popular:

• Double the surface area - triple the filter's life.
• Filter service life increases as the square of the increase in surface area.
• To improve the filter's life, reduce the flow rate through the filter media.

Which are true? In practice, all these axioms have some legitimacy, but often much more is involved.

Matching the Right Air Management Technology
to the Application Is a Critical Decision.

Control of dust, smoke, mist and other airborne contaminants is increasingly important to plant and facilities managers. The air inside many manufacturing and fabrication plants is a concern - smoke, dust, mist, and fumes are everywhere. Sensitive electronic controls for manufacturing equipment may be at risk. Airborne particulates are attracted to lighting fixtures. Paint over spray from finishing operations settles in undesirable areas. All these conditions decrease productivity, increase maintenance costs, increase corporate liability and threaten the health of your workers.

Increase Productivity

Dust/smoke/mist control is important to maintain high worker productivity. Keeping the air clean helps improve employee morale thereby reducing absenteeism. Studies show that a healthier workplace is a more productive one, especially considering in-plant air. Proper dust/smoke/mist control also helps recover valuable materials, reduce potential liability issues and cuts in-plant maintenance costs.

Decrease Risk

Burgeoning healthcare costs and the potential for lawsuits are causing plant managers to address workers' concerns over in-plant air quality. Health hazards must be minimized. OSHA clean air requirements must be met, and labor's demands for improved working conditions cannot be ignored. These issues require plant and facilities managers to control dust and smoke in the workplace.

Finding the right air filtering system requires balancing many factors - choosing carefully can result in an economical system that provides plant engineers with solutions to air management challenges.

By understanding basic air management technologies and referring to the above charts, plant and facilities managers can make preliminary determinations of product that provides a match with their needs. MTA can then provide the necessary technical assistance to propose the stand-alone unit or complete engineered system that is best for your application.

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