At home, as well as in the professional cooking sector, relying on a hood to purify air is not enough: retaining impurities, activated carbon filters allow a sanitized recirculation in the environment, significantly improving the IAQ (Indoor Air Quality).
Smells, fumes and steams can remain for hours after food cooking, altering the air quality inside the house and especially the kitchen. A problem for which the use of a hood with activated carbon filters can constitute the solution, through the filtering of dirty smelly air particles that are retained in the porous surface of this filter typology. Able to absorb the steams and fumes created in the gas or induction hob by releasing only clean air, activated carbon filters play a protagonist role in the suction hood sector, significantly sharing in the quality of the household appliance as well as in the environment healthiness.
«Our main target is understanding hood manufacturers’ requirements and expectations, also due to the scrupulous compliance with the specifications provided», explains Emanuele Ciappelloni, at the helm of Serf srl, company headquartered at Fabriano, in Marche, benchmark in the sector of activated carbon filters that, besides marketing its own products, can design and manufacture new filter typologies according to the most various requirements and with utmost flexibility. Established in 1996 after the twenty-year expertise gained with the former C. C. M. I. brand, currently Serf stands out for a complete offer range – from acrylic filters to rectangular and twin filters – providing for the filter implementation, from the moulding to the final assembly of the product ready for shipment, with fast manufacturing times and certified quality.
«Serf relies on a Quality Management System that conforms to the UNI EN ISO 9001:2008 regulation, for an efficient regular business management that plays an important role in the quality and reliability of our finished products», Emanuele Ciappelloni adds. «We have now decided further improving our manufacturing activity, offering a service to hood manufacturers through the qualitative production control, thanks to a Multifunctional Chamber that allows us to carry out a complete range of tests».
Implemented by the Italian engineering company 3P Engineering, the Multifunctional Chamber for Odour, Light and Capture Efficiency allows performing a complete set of tests on kitchen hoods, so providing manufacturers with strategic information for the product efficiency and functionality. «The use of the Multifunctional Chamber has enabled the control and the assessment of the raw materials used for the production, so determining also some differences between the data we already own and real ones», Emanuele Ciappelloni specifies. «Moreover, it allows us to supply customers with real parameters of odour absorption according to EN IEC 61591 and then, to intervene through data detection phases to make eventual changes in the use of raw materials».
With geometrical and physical characteristics in conformity with the specifications of the EN IEC 61591 regulation, the Multifunctional chamber essentially recreates a kitchen equipped to test all typologies of hoods, wall, isle and downdraft, and of suction hobs. «We have designed a sealed chamber, built in modular panel with a door and a window, creating a fully equipped environment according to EN IEC 61591 for the measurement of the flow rate, of the “Odour Reduction Factor”, ORF; and for the measurement of the “Effectiveness of the hob light”, (light test)», specifies Rosalino Usci, Managing Director of 3P Engineering. The chamber is provided with an autonomous system of fume disposal and operations, including measurements, data acquisition and post-processing, managed by PC, using the dedicated 3P Labware software application. Developed by 3P Engineering, this user-friendly platform allows performing automated stages in terms of hob heating and temperature servocontrol, precise dosing of the mixtures to be used during tests, real-time detection of MEK concentration in the test chamber, photoionization detector (PID), chamber cleaning (auxiliary fan), up to the direct processing of the test report at the test end. The automated management allows a notable advantage in terms of operator’s time, so that the only manual actions are limited to the installation of the hood and of odour filters after the conditioning, and to the preparation of mixtures to be used for tests. All measurements are then traced though graphs and test reports are also generated as calculation sheets.
Moreover, the chamber allows carrying out a series of tests to determine the capture efficiency of hoods and hobs, measuring the real quantity of sucked fumes and steams according to a unique method developed by 3P Engineering that provides for specific tests with tracing gases and the visualization of the thermal plume through laser blades. «This category of tests carried out in the Multifunctional Chamber allows relying on numerical values, then quantifiable and comparable, to measure the capability of not only sucking but especially of preventing the diffusion of odours, steams and pollutants, giving manufacturers the advantage of adapting the features of their products, so avoiding oversizing and relative energy wastes, with benefits in the lower noise level, too», Rosalino Usci specifies, reminding the Multifunctional Chamber is daily used by the Accredited Test Laboratory of 3P Engineering (Accredia Lab n. 1537 L, UNI CEI EN ISO/IEC 17025:2018) to test hoods and hobs by leader market manufacturers on a world scale.
«Through the Multifunctional Chamber, Serf can now qualify its production versus competitor companies, standing out on the market for the services we can so offer to hood producers», Emanuele Ciappelloni ends. «Moreover, speaking of manufacturing costs, we have passed the analysis phases by external laboratories, today with the certainty of supplying tested products, avoiding eventual non-conformities and the consequent problems».
