Only the Respirable fraction of total dust is known to have direct relation to health hazards. Therefore, measurement of worker exposure for respirable dust is considered one of the main criteria to establish associated health risk.
To full-fill need of monitoring exposure of the total air borne dust as well as the respirable fraction of dust, Envirotech has developed a light-weight, battery – operated Personal Sampler equipped with a cyclonic system. The sampler can be mounted on the body of the worker. The sampler has a compact aluminium cabinet with a clip so that the system can be belt worn.
The cyclone designed for cut off at 5 microns as recommended by DGMS for measurement of worker exposure to respirable dust. The air leaving the cyclone, having particles of the size 5 microns or less passes through glass micro-fiber filter of 37mm dia. housed in Teflon filter holder fitted at the top of cyclone where respirable dust get accumulated and can be quantified gravimetrically. The collected dust can further be analyzed for specific constituents viz. lead, other heavy metals, silica, etc. The APM 801 can sample air at flow rates from 0.5 to 3.0 LPM.
For optimum efficiency of the cyclonic system, the flow rate needs to be maintained between 1.6 and 1.9 lpm.
In APM 801 rechargeable Ni-Cd batteries are provided with sufficient storage to operate the system for full shift of 8hrs making it compatible for TLV measurements.
A separate battery-charger is provided with the system to recharge the batteries overnight.
