What are the protective classes of absorbers?

The absorbing equipment consists of absorbers complete with face-pieces or absorbing half-masks and they are used when environmental pollutants occur in the form of vapors or gases.

The effectiveness of the absorbing equipment depends on the type of face-piece used. Within this range, different absorbent compositions are used for different absorbers, which bind airborne contaminants by adsorption, chemisorption or catalysis.

In accordance with the provisions of the EN 14387: 2004 standard, we can distinguish types and classes of absorbing elements to which we assign individual letter symbols and label colors as follows:

• type marked with the letter A and brown in color - intended for protection against organic vapors and gases specified by the manufacturer, with a boiling point above 65 ° C;
• type marked with the letter AX and a brown color - intended for protection against organic vapors and gases with a boiling point below 65 ° C specified by the manufacturer;
• type marked with the letter B and a gray color - intended for protection against inorganic vapors and gases specified by the manufacturer, except for carbon monoxide;
• type marked with the letter E and yellow - designed to protect against sulfur dioxide and other vapors and acid gases specified by the manufacturer;
• type marked with the letter K and a green color - designed to protect against ammonia and organic derivatives of ammonia specified by the manufacturer;
• type marked with the symbol SX and a violet color - designed to protect against substances specified by the manufacturer, the so-called special absorber.

In terms of filter elements, we distinguish:

• type marked with NO-P3 and with blue and white colors - intended for protection against nitrogen oxides;
• type marked with Hg-P3 and red and white colors - designed to protect against mercury.

In addition, all absorbing elements are divided into protection classes (1,2,3):

• Low sorption capacity absorbers for gases or vapors with a volumetric concentration in the air not exceeding 0.1%;
• Absorbing elements with medium sorption capacity for gases or vapors with a concentration in air not exceeding 0.5% by volume;
• Absorbent elements with high sorption capacity for gases or vapors with a concentration in air up to 1% by volume.