The quality of air in an indoor environment is assuming greater importance considering the increased pollutants in the air; in South East Asia countries like Indonesia are constantly affected by wild fires and the debris in the air constitute a health hazard. Airborne particle counters help in determining the state of the air for health as well as environmental hygiene is concerned. Particle sizes from 0.1 to 100 micrometers can be detected.
Basically a particle counter is what it means; counts the number of particles; the methodologies used are by light scattering (for smaller sized particles); amount of light that is redirected by a particle when subjected to a light passing through it in a given area. The redirection is called light scattering. This technique is also utilized in monitoring ultrapure water in semiconductor fabrication. Light blocking method is another technique in measuring particles. This method is used to find contaminants in hydraulic fluid and results help in reducing downtime and costly breakdowns due to hydraulic system failures. The third technology in detecting particles is direct imaging; a cell is illuminated by laser where particles are passing the cell.
A typical particle counter use is maintaining a clean room; continuous monitoring by an array of sensors and connected to a remotely facility monitoring system with programmable logic controllers can immediately signal when the air quality of the given area crosses a predetermined threshold. Hand held particle counters are being increasingly used in monitoring indoor office and school environments that are stressed.
