Determination of the fractional efficiencies of fibrous filter media by optical in situ measurements

Abstract

An experimental setup is introduced to determine the fractional efficiency of fibrous filters. The device includes two optical particle counters for the in situ measurement of the particle flux and size upstream and downstream of a test filter. The simultaneous measurement in the raw and clean gas by a counting method allows a rapid determination of the fractional efficiencies of various filter media within a few minutes. In the first experiments performed with different aerosols (latex spheres, bacterial aerosol, limestone dust) the apparatus proved to be a reliable instrument for the investigation of the collection behaviour of fibrous filters influenced by various parameters. The fractional efficiency yields more information about the filter performance, i.e., respirable fraction, collection minimum, particle bouncing off etc., than the total collection efficiency. Thus it is possible to compare different filter media of the same or different filter class and determine their optimum operational conditions. © 1996 American Association for Aerosol Research.