From January 18th, 2024 the the workplace exposure standard (WES) for welding fumes has been reduced from an 8 hour time weighted average of 5mg/m3 to 1mg/m3. These changes are impacting a wide variety of industries and Alpha Scientific has been receiving a large number of calls in relation to monitoring these potentially dangerous aerosols. Welding fumes cover a very specific particle size range and its important that any equipment used for this type of monitoring be fit for purpose.
Some welding companies have reporting buying optical particle counter based instruments promoted as welding fume monitors. Most, if not all of these devices typically measure particles in the air down to 0.5um or 0.3um which is way higher than many of the welding particulates in the air. This leaves all those 500nm or 300nm and below particulates unmeasured, in particular the most dangerous (ultra-fine particles) which are less than 100nm.
Other organizations have reported buying equipment where the particle size range is unpublished or simply unknown. Obviously, if you don’t know what your particle monitor is capable of measuring then its impossible to know if it is suitable for measuring welding fume particulates properly.
At the end of the day, its pointless spending ANY amount of money if the equipment is simply not fit for the purpose. This just leaves companies and workers with a false sense of security and being at risk of exposure to much higher levels of particulates than these OPC based devices are capable of measuring and reporting. Is it worth putting the lives or your staff at risk ?
For more information in relation to these changes and the measurement technologies needed to accurately and properly measure these fumes, feel free to contact Alpha Scientific in Melbourne on (03) 9124 9886 or email sales@alphascientific.com.au