Continuous Dust and Particulate Analysers

Measuring Dust Loading in the Stack, Continuously

Instead of a stack tester visiting site for a handful of periodic manual samples, the analyser sits in the stack or duct permanently and reports a dust reading continuously. That gives operators a complete record of what actually left the plant across every hour of operation, not just the hours the sample happened to be taken.

Continuous particulate instruments generally work on one of two principles: optical, where light scattered or obscured by dust in the gas stream is measured, or triboelectric, where the electrical charge generated as particles strike a probe is measured directly. [VERIFY: confirm which principle Macrotec's own analyser uses before launch.] Both are established, continuous, non-contact-sampling approaches used across industrial stack monitoring.

The reading matters because it is the direct check on whatever is downstream of the combustion chamber. A steady baseline confirms ceramic filtration or a wet scrubber is performing as designed; a rising trend is often the first sign that a filter element needs attention, long before the plant is anywhere near its emission limit. The EU Industrial Emissions Directive sets a daily average particulate limit of 10 mg/Nm³, normalised to 11% O₂, dry gas, 273.15 K and 101.3 kPa, which is the benchmark a continuous dust reading is measured against.

Readings feed straight into the same monitoring dashboard as the rest of the plant, so the compliance record and the maintenance trigger come from a single, automatically logged data stream rather than a separate manual process.