From EN 779 to ISO 16890: a new worldwide reference test method for general ventilation filters

For testing of general ventilation filters, a completely new standard is now available and is going to replace EN 779 (2012) since the parts 1 to 4 of ISO 16890 (2017) have been adopted in August 2016 and published in 2017 at both international and European levels. With this new standard, the fractional efficiency of the new and the conditioned (24 hours to isopropanol vapour) filters is measured between 0.3 and 10 μm. The 2 fractional efficiency curves are combined to 2 different reference particle size distributions in order to obtain the efficiencies of the filter with reference to ePM1, ePM2.5 and ePM10. This paper presents the content of the new ISO 16890 and highlights the main differences between EN 779 and ISO 16890. The adoption of the new ISO 16890 standard has a great impact on the filtration and ventilation industries.