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$700 Million Market to Measure Particles in Air

Sales of devices to measure particles in the air exceed $700 million. This is the conclusion reached by the McIlvaine Company in its continuously updated Air & Water Pollution Monitoring World Markets. (www.mcilvainecompany.com)

The market is very fractured. There are many applications and many types of measurement instruments.

Category Recent Annual Revenues $ Millions
Opacity monitors-stack 150  (optical measurement)
Mass monitors-stack 100  with  $300 million bubble coming
Process gas particulate continuous monitors 40  (measure mass)
Broken bag detectors 30  (determine particulate escaping due to  broken filter bags)
Portable method 5 particulate sampler trains 40  (measure weight by collecting sample)
Ambient particulate monitoring stations 50  (measure weight)
Cleanroom  particulate network systems 60  (count particles)
Cleanroom  portable particle counters 40  (count particles)
Continuous indoor air particulate monitoring 50  (count particles)
Printer and other device particulate monitoring 20  (count particles)
Portable particulate monitors-indoor air 60  (count particles)
Biological viable particulate monitors-portable 50  (capture particles for later culture)
Engine test centers (particulate segment) 70  (particulate segment)
Total 760  (plus mass CEM surge)

 

The biggest segment is a more sophisticated version of the London smoke chart developed over 900 years ago.  The smoke inspector determined whether the stack plume was black, some shade of grey or white.  The digital version of the device today is the opacity monitor.

Many applications need more accurate measurement. Mass monitors determine the weight of particulate in the gas stream. New U.S. EPA requirements for power plants, cement plants and industrial boilers are requiring mass measurement. This will create a several hundred million dollar surge in sales.

A very clean exhaust gas stream still contains millions of particles. In fact, clean normal ambient air contains about 500,000 particles per cubic foot. Semiconductor cleanrooms must maintain an air quality of less than one particle per cubic foot.  There is no mass measurement method that is of sufficient sensitivity. So particle counting is the only option in cleanrooms and indoor work spaces.

There is a great deal of complexity relative to the definitions.   The reported measurements are based on particles of a certain size (generally 0.5 to as low as 0.1 micrometers).  This means that particles below 100 nanometers are not measured.  Generally these small particles are not sufficient in quantity to be considered. However, with nano technology gaining in popularity, there is the potential for the number of nano particles to be significant.

Another problem is the distinction between discrete and total particulate.  New EPA and State rules take into account  condensible as well as discrete particles and call the aggregate "total particulate." There are challenges in making the measurements and challenges in supplying air pollution control equipment to reduce total particulate to the required levels.

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