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How To Select The Best Particle Counters For Cleanrooms

If you’re an employee, manager, and owner of a company that works with electronics, or perhaps other manufacturing industries that require sanitised or clean surroundings, then perhaps you’re already familiar with the idea of cleanrooms. A cleanroom or clean room is a space, room, or facility that is utilised for the purposes of manufacturing items like pharmaceutical items, electronic components, circuitry, and more.

The items created in these facilities are highly sensitive to contaminants and other substances. If exposed to these contaminants, it might ruin the product or the process. That’s why workers in these facilities need specialised rooms and equipment like Honeywell gas detectors so that they work on them effectively. They are nicknamed “cleanrooms” because they have high cleanliness levels and are designed to have a very low level of particles such as dust and other airborne particles.

But how do they monitor this? Well, these rooms have devices that can help employees or managers check the number of particles in the area. Cleanrooms have cleanliness levels measured by the number of particles per cubic meter. This high-tech device is a staple in cleanrooms to maintain its cleanliness level at a certain threshold.

Particle counters: measuring cleanliness in cleanrooms

What are particle counters? If you still don’t know, here’s a simple breakdown: a particle counter is a device that allows you to detect particles of a certain substance, one at a time. There are many different kinds of particle counters. There are some that detect aerosols, gases, liquids, and solids. They all have important roles to play, but only particle counters that deal specifically with air or gas particles are used in the cleanrooms.

Aerosol or gas particle counters are designed to measure the air quality by counting and measuring the number of particles and particle size in the air. There are several ways in which particle counters can measure particles in the air, from light blocking, imaging, and more.

How do you choose the right particle counter for your cleanroom?

Ever wondered how you can choose the best particle counter for your workplaces? It’s important because you need to spend some time evaluating your safety equipment. You should choose your particle counters by the specifications you need. How sensitive should your particle counter be? Do you want a wall-mounted or a handheld particle counter?

One of the factors that you should consider when choosing your particle counters is how sensitive it is in detecting particles. The first thing you have to check is the size of the particles you need to measure. Check the ISO class of your cleanroom and use it as a reference. When checking for particle counters, make sure that it can monitor all the particles that you have to check for, regardless of size.

The selection process

Because the selection of particle counters depends on your cleanroom’s requirements, you need to consider what you need in your safety equipment before making a final choice on what you should get. Most people will make their selections based on the type of counter and the cost of the device.

Before you make your decision, here are a few questions you should ask yourself while looking at your options.

  1. What type of environment will the particle counter be used in? What ISO level is the cleanroom and will it be used for routine particle counting or other applications that are more critical?
  • What type of data does your particle counter need to collect? You need to pay close attention to its features. Some are more simple and straightforward, while others have more advanced features like the logging of data into spreadsheets and records.
  • Do you need your particle counter to be portable? Or do you need a more precise device that is mounted on walls, carts, and other places?
  • How often will you use the particle counter? Do you need a particle counter that is running continuously?

With these questions, you should be able to determine what types of particle counters you need.  Several specifications, such as flow rate, counting efficiency, sensitivity, and other such parameters, can differ from device to device. Make sure not to use only one specification as the determining factor in choosing the particle counter that you need for your area. Price isn’t always an indication of quality.

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