Airborne dust particle counting
To follow changing levels of airborne dust particulate matter “PM” continuously, the Dylos Laser Particle Counter #DC-1700-PM displays:
- a dynamic bar graph of instantaneous particle concentrations, and:
- numbers displayed for both of the “bi-modal” particle size ranges:
- Small (0.5-2.5 µm diameter) (fine dust, inhaled more deeply) on the left side, and
- Large (2.5-10 µm) (coarse dust) on the right; with
- numbers displayed for 2 different concentration units, either:
- mass concentration in micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3), both Small “PM<2.5” and Large “PM<10”; or:
- particle concentration in counts per 0.01 cubic feet, (where Small includes a few Large). To convert counts into other units:
- multiply by 100 to get counts per cu.ft. (x100= #/ft3), or
- multiply by 4000 to get counts per cu.m (x4000= #/m3), or
- multiply by 4 to get counts per liter (x4= #/L) (to get more convenient smaller numbers to work with).
The Dylos can set the operating mode to run as either:
- continuous (updates display every second, records each minute), or
- monitor (records 1 minute each hour, shows latest, stores 30 days)
Airborne particle level descriptions
Levels of PM<2.5 are described by the USEPA air quality index (AQI) as:
-
-
- above 300 “hazardous”
- 201-300 “very unhealthy”
- 151-200 “unhealthy”
- 101-150 “unhealthy for sensitive groups”
- 51-100 “moderate”
- 0-50 “good”
-
>see previous page for how particle size matters
===