Welding Solutions: Flowtron Industrial Air Cleaners

When do ambient air cleaners help in the welding shop? Sometimes, a hood is not a sufficient or ideal way to capture all the weld smoke and fume, such as in the following cases:

• When the welding task involves variable-sized or very large parts, some smoke and fume may escape and migrate throughout the shop and adjoining areas.
• If there are multiple welding operations in the shop, even a small amount of smoke escaping from each can accumulate into a haze.
• Some shops utilize forklifts or booms to move large parts in and out of the work areas, and ventilation hoods can get in the way.
• Fume extractors and the frequent need to re-position them can obstruct the welders' freedom of operation and efficiency.


If the ongoing welding operations constantly generate heavy smoke and fume, the filtration systems must be robust enough to keep up, ideally without constant maintenance needs. Free-hanging air cleaners with automatic filter cleaning can make the difference both in facilitating the welding work and at the same time achieving success in clearing the air of noxious smoke and fume. In some cases ambient air cleaners can act as a stand-alone system to accomplish all the air filtration needed, and in some cases they are the perfect complement to source capture systems, working together to successfully clear the air.

How do air cleaners filter out the smoke? Industrial air cleaners are positioned throughout the welding area or shop to created a planned air circulation pattern. The air cleaner blowers constantly move the smoke and fume from the welding operations toward the inlets, thus capturing and filtering the contaminated air and blowing clean, filtered air back into circulation. The resultant whole-room air exchange repeated every few minutes typically reduces air-borne contaminants up to 85%.

Why do Flowtrons make a great choice? Flowtrons are extra-large and powerful industrial air cleaners that are effective in any shop and easy to use and maintain:

• The nanofiber-laminated media of the large cartridge filters is 99.9% efficient for the fine smoke and fume generated in welding operations, and if necessary can also collect coarser dust from sanding or finishing processes.
• The automatic filter-cleaning system utilizes the Sonic Resonating Rapper to clean the cartridges thoroughly, thus keeping them operating at top efficiency.
• All the filtration units may be connected to a central vacuum for fully automated dust removal from the air cleaner hoppers to a dust collector or barrel on the floor.
• Flowtrons feature adjustable, high-velocity dual discharge and can be aligned against the walls for maximum circulation and capture.
• Furthermore, these high-powered filtration units have backward-inclined airfoil type wheels for quiet operation.

For more about the features and options available, see Flowtron Industrial Air Cleaners.