CEL announced the next generation of its Microdust™ real-time dust monitor, one of the health and safety industry’s most widely used handheld monitoring devices for assessing employee risk for exposure to dangerous levels of dust and aerosols. Setting a higher standard for accuracy and ease-of-use, the all-new CEL-712 Microdust Pro uses a laser diode based light-scattering sensor to instantly detect dangerous concentrations of airborne particles and aerosols in the workplace, for spot checks and walk-through surveys, or when performing continuous evaluation of fast-changing environments. It can be used independently to measure material processes, filter performance or to capture release events such as a bag breaks, or can be paired with a cyclone, filter cassette, and sample pump for size-selective or gravimetric monitoring.

“Real-time monitoring by the Microdust Pro warns users of the presence of an immediate health-related issue, which is especially critical in pharmaceutical or chemical batch processes that could expose employees to sudden, high levels of inhalable powders,” explained Rob Brauch, Business Unit Manager for Casella CEL Inc. “Because of this capability the Microdust Pro is far more useful for capturing work-practice or process-related dust releases than traditional gravimetric methods that only give eight hour average exposure levels, and do not provide time references of events. Real-time monitoring also makes it useful in gauging the effectiveness of safety and process control measures.”

With its large graphical color display, the CEL-712 Microdust Pro empowers users to quickly identify trends and events showing precisely when and where excessive dust levels occur so immediate action can be taken. In addition, it has the widest maximum measurement range of any hand-held real-time dust monitor available today (0.001 to 25,000 mg/m3), plus it can be zero- and span-calibrated in the field for maximum accuracy with a unique on-site calibration device. Its versatility is further enhanced with an assortment of accessories for size-selective sampling applications, including total respirable, PM2.5 and PM10. A detachable probe helps safely reach into breathing zones, small spaces and ducts

Unlike more complicated dust monitors on the market, the CEL-712 Microdust Pro is exceptionally easy to use. It features an intuitive icon-driven interface to navigate its important functions,. Plus, to indicate when a measurement is being recorded for later download, the screen shows green borders and displays real-time averages and instantaneous levels in an easy-to-understand graphical format. Once the measurement is finished, the display changes to red. A maximum of 999 measurements can be stored to the CEL-712’s memory, and the device is compatible and comes with Casella’s comprehensive analysis software, Insight™. Concise user-defined reports are easily generated and saved in a wide variety of standard file types for integration into various reporting formats.