The Ultimate Guide to Data Center Air Filtration Solutions

In the digital age, Data Centers are the heart of the internet. To ensure servers run uninterrupted 24/7, we usually focus on power and cooling systems. However, we often overlook an important factor—air quality.

When dust and corrosive gases in the air attach to server hardware, it can lead to server downtime and hardware damage. Air pollution in data centers mainly comes from two sources: particulate pollution and chemical pollution. Amorai Purification will analyze how data centers can effectively perform air filtration from these two perspectives.

Particulate Pollution

Particulate pollution is commonly known as dust. Dust is ubiquitous in our environment. But for data centers, tiny dust particles can cause huge damage, even affecting a company's entire operation. The following are common hazards of particulate pollution:

Server Overheating : When dust enters the server, it adheres to the CPU heat sinks and motherboard components. This layer of dust acts like a "quilt" covering the server, blocking heat dissipation. To cool down, server fans must run at full speed, causing energy consumption to soar. If the heat cannot dissipate, the server will automatically shut down or even burn out.

Conductive Dust Causing Short Circuits: Some dust (such as metal scraps or salt-containing particles) is conductive. Once it lands between the tiny pins on a circuit board, it can cause short circuits, directly leading to the failure of expensive hardware.

Regarding particulate pollution, we recommend using MERV 13 or higher-level HEPA filters to intercept tiny dust particles before they enter the server room, cutting them off at the source.

Chemical Pollution

Compared to visible dust, invisible corrosive gases are more dangerous. Common chemical pollutants in data centers are mainly airborne sulfides (such as sulfur dioxide SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). They combine with moisture in the air to form acidic substances. These substances enter the server room through the ventilation system and slowly corrode the copper and silver on server circuit boards. If you see blue-black substances that look like "mold" on a circuit board, these are corrosion products. This corrosion leads to poor contact or broken circuits and is difficult to repair.

According to the ISA 71.04 standard, data center air environments are divided into four levels (G1, G2, G3, GX). For equipment safety, the environment must be controlled at the G1 (mild corrosion) level.

How to Design a Data Center Air Filtration System?

To maintain high environmental cleanliness and ensure the effective operation of data centers, a reasonable air filtration solution is essential. The main solution is to establish a multi-stage filtration system to "strictly defend" against particulate pollutants and chemical pollutants.

Particulate Filtration: This is designed to block dust. We recommend a two-stage filtration design.

---Pre-filtration: Install pre-filters at the front end to intercept large particles like sand and lint,protecting the expensive high-efficiency filters in the back.

---High-efficiency filtration: Install HEPA filters before the air outlet to intercept micron-level particles      that are most harmful to electronic components.

Chemical/Molecular Filtration: Use specially treated Activated Carbon or alumina particles to neutralize sulfides, oxides, and ozone in the air through chemical reactions, preventing circuit board corrosion. If your server room is located in an area with poor air quality, this is essential.

Energy Saving and Maintenance

Regularly monitor pressure difference: Don't wait until the filter is completely blocked to replace it. Install a pressure differential gauge and replace it promptly when resistance reaches the set value.

Strictly prevent bypass leakage:Ensure the filter frame is sealed tightly. If air slips through gaps (bypass), even the best filter is useless.

Regular replacement: Do not attempt to clean disposable filters. Replace filters promptly according to supplier requirements to reduce the data center hardware failure rate and ensure the air conditioning system operates at optimal energy efficiency.

A well-designed air filtration system can effectively block particulate matter (preventing overheating) and corrosive gases (preventing hardware failure). Although the investment in filters may seem like a cost, compared to the huge losses caused by server downtime, it is the most cost-effective insurance.