Hello everybody,
I’d like to have your advice on this quite general issue. We have a microscope in a room which has a lot of dust. We were wondering whether an air purifier (like this one Series 800 Luftreiniger AC0819/10 | Philips) could be useful.
What’s your opinion ?
Best,
Nicolas
Do you know what the source of the dust is? External from under doors, coming in from vents, etc? Humans (no humans means a perfectly clean microscope that never gets damaged!)?
Hi Nicolas,
I’m not familiar with that unit, but the specs look like it’s more suited for filtering viruses and bacteria. If dust is the only problem, you would be spending a lot of money on expensive filters unnecessarily. Often these filtration units come with two or more filters in series, or a filter with a carbon filter attached, which provides more flexibility and economy with replacing or vacuuming the first stage filter.
Note that virtually all the filtration units will be loud at the highest setting, so I suggest to get a unit that has several (manual) speeds to choose from. This unit only has auto, high and sleep speeds. When I went shopping several months ago, I eventually decided on the Winix PlasmaWave 5300-2. I’m happy with it overall, but 3rd speed seems to be <1/3 of the 4th speed, and I would prefer to have the speeds spread out more evenly.
Some possibly useful websites:
Cheers,
Jeff
I’m in a very dry environment (Colorado) and have definitely thought of air filters. Also, there is sticky tape type stuff that I’ve seen some people put on the floor before entering or upon entering that will remove dust from shoes so it doesn’t get tracked in. I know this is silly advice, but I use a feather-type duster regularly, one that has a super high dust-binding capacity and that you can rinse out, and I wipe surfaces. I’ve talked to microscope reps about air purifiers and filters and concluded that if you use one, place it such that it draws the air away from the microscopes. The other thing I do for mitigation is address the air flow into your spaces, cleaning vents and filters if there are any. Good luck.
I have iQAir filters in most of my labs. The hyper HEPA performance is certified so you know there are no leaks. The larger boxes have a spare layer which can do chemical filtration, which was useful in our robot room where too much DMSO was evaporating and users could taste it. Filter fixed that. Good for COVID precaution too as the medium #4 setting pulls 140cfm, to do a room’s worth of air every 10 minutes.
This is not a very scientific suggestion, but getting to know the custodial staff is a big help. Often the equipment in a lab looks very complex, expensive or even downright dangerous to an outsider. Just getting to know the people who clean the public areas of a facility can help. Have never met a cleaner, earning minimum wage, who is voluntarily going anywhere near a thing-a-ma-jig that costs as much as their house with a bucket of water…let alone into a room with all sorts of warning signs on the door. Explaining to one of the custodial staff…hey…can you come pass a mop or damp cloth under and around this or that piece of equipment on a semi-regular basis. It is not going to hurt or damage it or you.