Often patients will enter the ocularist office expecting to catch a strong whiff of the chemicals used to process the acrylics. We are happy to declare that when one enters our office, these smells are not present! We have gone to great measures to ensure the chemicals we use are handled in safe and appropriate ways, and that the fumes are collected at the source, resulting in almost no exposure to the patient or ocularist alike.

We have had filtration systems in place for over 15 years, but it was time to upgrade our systems last summer. Our goal was to provide a safe office environment and near total fume capture. How did we accomplish this? We have been very impressed by the air scrubbers produced by Electrocorp, which is now run out of Canada. These machines are vibrationless and almost silent. The only sound is the airflow, the motor noise itself is almost undetectable.

We have 3 stations to capture fumes at the source and we also have 2 room scrubbers that run full time, pulling any residue particles out of the air. These machines are HEPA rated air filters. HEPA stands for high efficiency particulate air filter and describes a filter that can remove at least 99.97% of airborne particles 0.3 microns in diameter. After the HEPA filter is a large cylinder of activated carbon, which permanently remove chemicals and dust from the air.

Here are 2 short videos of our systems pulling CO2 from dry ice into the filters: Paint Room Filtration System Video –  Lab Filtration System Video

Our 3 stations have been specifically designed for the purpose of capturing monomer fumes, before they disperse into the lab. We used stainless steel grates and acrylic fume hoods to direct the airflow with very good results. Here are a few photos of our finished stations. We are very excited to be able to create a clean, healthy environment for us as ocularists, but also for you as patients!