Air Quality (dust) is an invisible threat to Data Centers, server rooms, equipment rooms, telecom shelters, ... Haze due to forest fires or fossile fuels is a common source of dust particles. Typically airconditioning units can purify the air but when high peaks of pollution are reached, then they may no longer cope. Dust deposits on circuit boards and can damage it. This may result in permanent loss of IT equipment such as servers, network and storage systems.

Standards like ASHRAE TC9 and ISO 14644 require the air quality to be maintained in a data center. To monitor the threat of dust particles, we developed a unique optical dust meter probe that continously monitors the number of dust particles. For increased accuracy, multiple sensors have to be deployed in the room as the sensor only monitors the particles flowing through it.