Monthly Archives: April 2011

Dust Monitoring Equipment in an Arctic Environment

We have not yet used our equipment in an Arctic environment but would look forward to using it in this environment. The coldest temperatures for units currently in use is about -3 DEG Celcius in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The four bucket equipment has one moving part that would need to move to enable the unit to work (The lid needs to rotate with the wind). The single bucket unit has no moving part used during the sampling period, but the unit can be lowered to change the bucket and we are not sure how very cold temperatures would affect that. The four bucket unit also has a lowering mechanism to allow for the buckets to be changed.

The buckets are normally changed monthly or two weekly to prevent the water in the buckets from evaporating, but in the Artic the water is unlikely to evaporate as quickly and this could affect how the sampling programme is designed. Provisionally, our recommendation would be to change the samples monthly or quarterly.

The DustWatch unit is designed to only collect particles when the wind speed is below 3m/s and predomainaly collects dust when there is little to no wind. The particle sizes collected range from 0 to 100 micron.

The buckets contain water to capture the dust when it is in the buckets. Some anti-freeze would be required to prevent the water from freezing in the buckets. The buckets used are made of Plastic and we are not sure how this will cope under very cold conditions.

We supply robust Buchner funnel laboratory equipment for use with the sampling programme. Samples make up a small package and can then be sent for weighing to any laboratory or to us in Cape Town. We will also be able to generate the regular reports if required.

The main products we supply are shown here.

Transportation costs would be worked out on the dimentions and weight of the package and we normally let the client arrange the transportation independantly from Cape Town South Africa.

Dust Particles – Image of the Day

Dust Particles shown under the Microscope

Dust Particles shown under the Microscope

Dust Particles – Image of the Day

Dust Particles under the Microscope

Dust Particles under the Microscope

Equipment Mistakes – Image of the Day

Equipment Mistakes - Earth Moving Equipment.

Equipment Mistakes – Earth Moving Equipment.