Getting Particular about Particulates

For over 20 years air filters have been tested and classified according to EN779. If they’re from a reputable manufacturer, the filters in your air handling units will have been made to meet this standard. However, given the information available about the health risks arising from particulate matter inhalation, this doesn’t mean that your filters are up to the standard you may have hoped for. Are they supplying truly clean air?

That’s why a new ISO standard is coming into force within the next few months. And when you are specifying or upgrading air filters, it should help you breathe more easily. 

The world catches up

The new ISO 16890 standard will help you find more effective filters for your application, because it’s based on testing which replicates atmospheric conditions within the actual testing laboratory. This is an approach which Mann + Hummel has been promoting for many years.

Where the old standard (EN779:2012) concentrated on ensuring uniformity across filters – which at least served to drive up standards and simplify selection – it didn’t allow for the fact that air is not uniform. Or at least the particulates it contains aren’t. So the standard only tested a filter’s ability to capture particulates of one size: 0.4µm. Yet there is a huge range of particulate sizes present in the air, and any of them below 2.5µm are small enough to sneak past the body’s natural defences and enter the lungs. 

The new ISO standard, on the other hand, uses a series of twelve tests to put filters through their paces with a variety of different-sized particulates – from 0.3µm all the way up to 10µm – just as they could face in your air-handling unit. 

A Mann + Hummel eco16 survey is also based on real life conditions. And not in the lab but at your own facility. The survey measures and analyses the precise conditions at your site, so the exact filter specification best suited to the local environment can be selected. 

Using the patented eco16 survey and filter selection programme, you can be sure of receiving a Mann + Hummel filter which guarantees a set level of air quality at the lowest possible cost of ownership. 

Choose your air

The new ISO standard, launched in early 2017 with an 18-month transition period, makes it easier for you to choose the filter that delivers the quality of air you want to breathe. 

The Standard defines four new filter groups: Coarse, ePM10, ePM2.5 and ePM1 (“e” simply stands for “efficiency” and “PM” for “Particulate Matter”). To fit into a group, the filter must capture at least 50% of the particulates in that size range. Filters which capture less than 50% of PM10 particulates go into the Coarse group. 

Mann + Hummel recommend that you use the World Health Organisation’s safe level figures as the baseline for your own filter choices. These prescribe the recommended level for indoor air quality as being PM10 at 20µg/m3 and PM2.5 at 10µg/m3. There is currently no set guideline for PM1 levels so you should set the air quality level according to the needs of the particular application. PM1 is the most harmful of particle sizes, so when it comes to health we recommend a minimum of an ePM1 50% filter within the majority of applications.  

It’s easy to find the PM levels in your local area by searching on the internet. You can then use the information to work out the level of filtration you need to achieve safe particulate levels in your building, as in the example below. 

Then you can talk to ERIKS about choosing the right Mann + Hummel replacement filter to upgrade your air handling unit and upgrade your air quality.