SIST EN ISO 16890-3:2024

SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-november-2024
Zračni filtri pri splošnem prezračevanju - 3. del: Ugotavljanje gravimetrijske
učinkovitosti in odpornosti pretoka zraka v odvisnosti od mase zajetega
preskusnega prahu (ISO 16890-3:2024)
Air filters for general ventilation - Part 3: Determination of the gravimetric efficiency and
the air flow resistance versus the mass of test dust captured (ISO 16890-3:2024)
Luftfilter für die allgemeine Raumlufttechnik - Teil 3: Ermittlung des gravimetrischen
Wirkungsgrades sowie des Durchflusswi-derstandes im Vergleich zu der
aufgenommenen Masse von Prüfstaub (ISO 16890-3:2024)
Filtres à air de ventilation générale - Partie 3: Détermination de l'efficacité gravimétrique
et de la résistance à l'écoulement de l'air par rapport à la quantité de poussière d'essai
retenue (ISO 16890-3:2024)
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: EN ISO 16890-3:2024
ICS:
91.140.30 Prezračevalni in klimatski Ventilation and air-
sistemi conditioning systems
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.

EN ISO 16890-3
EUROPEAN STANDARD
NORME EUROPÉENNE
September 2024
EUROPÄISCHE NORM
ICS 91.140.30 Supersedes EN ISO 16890-3:2016
English Version
Air filters for general ventilation - Part 3: Determination of
the gravimetric efficiency and the air flow resistance
versus the mass of test dust captured (ISO 16890-3:2024)
Filtres à air de ventilation générale - Partie 3: Luftfilter für die allgemeine Raumlufttechnik - Teil 3:
Détermination de l'efficacité gravimétrique et de la Ermittlung des gravimetrischen Wirkungsgrades sowie
résistance à l'écoulement de l'air par rapport à la des Durchflusswiderstandes im Vergleich zu der
quantité de poussière d'essai retenue (ISO 16890- aufgenommenen Masse von Prüfstaub (ISO 16890-
3:2024) 3:2024)
This European Standard was approved by CEN on 24 August 2024.

CEN members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this
European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration. Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references
concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre or to any CEN
member.
This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by
translation under the responsibility of a CEN member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC Management
Centre has the same status as the official versions.

CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway,
Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and
United Kingdom.
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE FOR STANDARDIZATION
COMITÉ EUROPÉEN DE NORMALISATION

EUROPÄISCHES KOMITEE FÜR NORMUNG

CEN-CENELEC Management Centre: Rue de la Science 23, B-1040 Brussels
© 2024 CEN All rights of exploitation in any form and by any means reserved Ref. No. EN ISO 16890-3:2024 E
worldwide for CEN national Members.

Contents Page
European foreword . 3

European foreword
This document (EN ISO 16890-3:2024) has been prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 142
"Cleaning equipment for air and other gases" in collaboration with Technical Committee CEN/TC 195
“Cleaning equipment for air and other gases” the secretariat of which is held by UNI.
This European Standard shall be given the status of a national standard, either by publication of an
identical text or by endorsement, at the latest by March 2025, and conflicting national standards shall
be withdrawn at the latest by March 2025.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. CEN shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
This document supersedes EN ISO 16890-3:2016.
Any feedback and questions on this document should be directed to the users’ national standards
body/national committee. A complete listing of these bodies can be found on the CEN website.
According to the CEN-CENELEC Internal Regulations, the national standards organizations of the
following countries are bound to implement this European Standard: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,
Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland,
Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of
North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and the
United Kingdom.
Endorsement notice
The text of ISO 16890-3:2024 has been approved by CEN as EN ISO 16890-3:2024 without any
modification.
International
Standard
ISO 16890-3
Second edition
Air filters for general ventilation —
2024-08
Part 3:
Determination of the gravimetric
efficiency and the air flow
resistance versus the mass of test
dust captured
Filtres à air de ventilation générale —
Partie 3: Détermination de l'efficacité gravimétrique et de la
résistance à l'écoulement de l'air par rapport à la quantité de
poussière d'essai retenue
Reference number
ISO 16890-3:2024(en) © ISO 2024

ISO 16890-3:2024(en)
© ISO 2024
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting on
the internet or an intranet, without prior written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address below
or ISO’s member body in the country of the requester.
ISO copyright office
CP 401 • Ch. de Blandonnet 8
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva
Phone: +41 22 749 01 11
Email: copyright@iso.org
Website: www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
ii
ISO 16890-3:2024(en)
Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
3.1 Air flow and resistance .2
3.2 Test device .2
3.3 Gravimetric efficiency.3
4 Symbols . 4
5 General test device requirements . 5
5.1 Test device requirements .5
5.2 Test device preparation .5
6 Loading dust . 5
7 Test equipment . 5
7.1 Test rig .5
7.2 Upstream mixing orifice .5
7.3 Liquid aerosol testing devices .6
7.4 Dust feeder .6
7.5 Final filter.10
8 Qualification of test rig and apparatus .11
8.1 Schedule of qualification testing requirements .11
8.2 Dust feeder air flow rate .11
8.3 Final filter efficiency qualification test . 12
9 Test sequence dust-loading procedure .12
9.1 Test procedure for the filter . 12
9.1.1 Preparation of the test device . 12
9.1.2 Initial resistance to air flow . 12
9.2 Dust loading . 13
9.2.1 Dust loading procedure . 13
9.2.2 Arrestance . 13
9.2.3 Test dust capacity .14
10 Reporting results . 14
10.1 General .14
10.2 Required reporting elements .14
10.2.1 Report values .14
10.2.2 Report summary . 15
10.2.3 Report details .16
Annex A (informative) Resistance to air flow calculation .20
Bibliography .22

iii
ISO 16890-3:2024(en)
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards
bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out through
ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee
has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations,
governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely
with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are described
in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria needed for the different types
of ISO document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the editorial rules of the
ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).
ISO draws attention to the possibility that the implementation of this document may involve the use of (a)
patent(s). ISO takes no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of any claimed patent
rights in respect thereof. As of the date of publication of this document, ISO had not received notice of (a)
patent(s) which may be required to implement this document. However, implementers are cautioned that
this may not represent the latest information, which may be obtained from the patent database available at
www.iso.org/patents. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions
related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to the World Trade
Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), see www.iso.org/iso/foreword.html.
This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 142, Cleaning equipment for air and other gases,
in collaboration with the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) Technical Committee CEN/TC
195, Cleaning equipment for air and other gases, in accordance with the Agreement on technical cooperation
between ISO and CEN (Vienna Agreement).
This second edition cancels and replaces the first edition (ISO 16890-3:2016), which has been technically
revised.
The main changes are as follows:
— the initial loading step has been revised from 30 g to 60 g throughout the document.
A list of all parts in the ISO 16890 series can be found on the ISO website.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html.

iv
ISO 16890-3:2024(en)
Introduction
The effects of particulate matter (PM) on human health have been extensively studied in the past decades.
The results are that fine dust can be a serious health hazard, contributing to or even causing respiratory
and cardiovascular diseases. For the outdoor environment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Union, and other national agencies have established
acceptable air quality standards according to concentrations of particulate matter classified per their
aerodynamic sizes, defined as PM and PM , and measured according to strict prescriptive methods and
2,5 10
sampling times.
Since there is growing interest in relating indoor air quality to outdoors, the ISO 16890 series classifies
ventilation filters according to their efficiencies measured with an optical diameter between 0,3 µm and
x µm and relating the result to historic global average ambient PM concentrations. Although not exactly
equivalent to filter performance of national ambient air quality standards at PM, the classification scheme
presented in the ISO 16890 series yields a level of correspondence to the effectiveness of the filter for
ambient particle concentrations. It is however recognized that the correspondence based on global averages
may not be exactly the same at a specific location since local ambient particle concentration may be different
than the global average.
The particle size ranges shown in Table 1 are used in the ISO 16890 series for the listed efficiency values.
Table 1 — Optical particle diameter size ranges for the definition of the efficiencies, ePM
x
Efficiency Size range
µm
ePM 0,3 ≤ x ≤10
ePM 0,3 ≤ x ≤2,5
2,5
ePM 0,3 ≤ x ≤1
Air filters for general ventilation are widely used in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning applications of
buildings. In this application, air filters significantly influence the indoor air quality and, hence, the health
of people, by reducing the concentration of particulate matter. To enable design engineers and maintenance
personnel to choose the correct filter types, there is an interest from international trade and manufacturing
for a well-defined, common method of testing and classifying air filters according to their particle
efficiencies, especially with respect to the removal of particulate matter. Current regional standards are
applying totally different testing and classification methods, which do not allow any comparison with each
other, and thus hinder global trade with common products. Additionally, the current industry standards
have known limitations by generating results which often are far away from filter performance in service,
i.e. overstating the particle removal efficiency of many products. With the ISO 16890 series, a completely
new approach for a classification system is adopted, which gives more meaningful results compared to the
existing standards.
The ISO 16890 series describes the equipment, materials, technical specifications, requirements, qualifications
and procedures to produce the laboratory performance data and efficiency classification based upon the
measured fractional efficiency converted into a particulate matter efficiency (ePM) reporting system.
Air filter elements according to the ISO 16890 series are evaluated in the laboratory by their ability to remove
aerosol particulate expressed as the efficiency values ePM , ePM and ePM The air filter elements can
1 2,5 10.
then be classified according to the procedures defined in ISO 16890-1. The particulate removal efficiency
of the filter element is measured as a function of the particle size in the range of 0,3 μm to 10 µm of the
unloaded and unconditioned filter element as per the procedures defined in ISO 16890-2. After the initial
particulate removal efficiency testing, the air filter element is conditioned according to the procedures
defined in ISO 16890-4 and the particulate removal efficiency is repeated on the conditioned filter element.
This is done to provide information about the intensity of any electrostatic removal mechanism which may
or may not be present with the filter element for test. The average efficiency of the filter is determined by
calculating the mean between the initial efficiency and the conditioned efficiency for each size range. The
average efficiency is used to calculate the ePM efficiencies by weighting these values to the standardized
x
and normalized particle size distribution of the related ambient aerosol fraction. When comparing filters

v
ISO 16890-3:2024(en)
tested in accordance with the ISO 16890 series, the fractional efficiency values need to always be compared
among the same ePM class (e.g. ePM of filter A with ePM of filter B). The test dust capacity and the
x 1 1
arrestance of a filter element are determined as per the test procedures defined in this document.
The performance results obtained in accordance with ISO 16890 series cannot by themselves be
quantitatively applied to predict performance in service with regard to efficiency and lifetime.

vi
International Standard ISO 16890-3:2024(en)
Air filters for general ventilation —
Part 3:
Determination of the gravimetric efficiency and the air flow
resistance versus the mass of test dust captured
1 Scope
This document specifies the test equipment and the test methods used for measuring the gravimetric
efficiency and resistance to air flow of air filter for general ventilation.
It is intended for use in conjunction with ISO 16890-1, ISO 16890-2 and ISO 16890-4.
3 3
The test method described in this document is applicable for air flow rates between 0,25 m /s (900 m /h,
3 3 3 3
530 ft /min) and 1,5 m /s (5 400 m /h, 3 178 ft /min), referring to a test rig with a nominal face area of
610 mm × 610 mm (24 in × 24 in).
This document refers to particulate air filter elements for general ventilation having an ePM efficiency less
than or equal to 99 % and an ePM efficiency greater than 20 % when tested as per the procedures defined
in the ISO 16890 series.
NOTE The lower limit for this test procedure is set at a minimum ePM efficiency of 20 % since it is very difficult
for a test filter element below this level to meet the statistical validity requirements of this procedure.
This document does not apply to filter elements used in portable room-air cleaners.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content constitutes
requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references,
the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO 15957, Test dusts for evaluating air cleaning equipment
ISO 16890-2:2022, Air filters for general ventilation — Part 2: Measurement of fractional efficiency and air flow
resistance
ISO 16890-4, Air filters for general ventilation — Part 4: Conditioning method to determine the minimum
fractional test efficiency
ISO 29463-1, High efficiency filters and filter media for removing particles from air — Part 1: Classification,
performance, testing and marking
ISO 80000-1:2022, Quantities and units — Part 1: General
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminology databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https:// www .iso .org/ obp

ISO 16890-3:2024(en)
— IEC Electropedia: available at https:// www .electropedia .org/
3.1 Air flow and resistance
3.1.1
air flow rate
volume of air flowing through an air cleaner per unit time
[SOURCE: ISO 29464:2024, 3.1.29, modified — The preferred term "flow rate" has been removed.]
3.1.2
resistance to air flow
difference in absolute (static) pressure between two points in an air flow system at specified conditions,
especially when measured across the filter element (3.2.2)
Note 1 to entry: Resistance to air flow is measured in Pa (inches of water).
[SOURCE: ISO 29464:2024, 3.1.43, modified — The admitted terms have been removed; “at specified
conditions, especially when measured across the filter element” has been added.]
3.1.3
final resistance to air flow
resistance to air flow (3.1.2) up to which the filtration performance is measured to determine the test dust
capacity (3.3.4)
Note 1 to entry: Final resistance to air flow is measured in Pa (inches of water).
[SOURCE: ISO 29464:2024, 3.2.141, modified – “for classification or other purposes” has been replaced with
“to determine the test dust capacity”.]
3.1.4
initial resistance to air flow
resistance to air flow (3.1.2) of the clean filter operating at its test air flow rate (3.1.1)
Note 1 to entry: Initial resistance to air flow is expressed in Pa (inches of water).
[SOURCE: ISO 29464:2024, 3.2.142]
3.1.5
test air
air being used for testing purposes
[SOURCE: ISO 29464:2024, 3.1.44]
3.2 Test device
3.2.1
test device
air cleaner that is being subjected to performance testing
[SOURCE: ISO 29464:2024, 3.1.45, modified — The preferred terms "device under test" and "DUT" have been
removed.]
3.2.2
filter element
structure made of the filtering material, its supports and its interfaces with the filter housing
[SOURCE: ISO 29464:2024, 3.2.59]

ISO 16890-3:2024(en)
3.2.3
upstream
U/S
area or region from which fluid flows as it enters an air cleaner
[SOURCE: ISO 29464:2024, 3.1.46, modified — "U/S" has been added as an admitted term.]
3.2.4
downstream
D/S
area or region into which fluid flows on leaving an air cleaner
[SOURCE: ISO 29464:2024, 3.1.16, modified — "D/S" has been added as an admitted term.]
3.2.5
final filter
air filter used to collect the loading dust (3.3.5) passing through or shedding from the filter under test
[SOURCE: ISO 29464:2024, 3.2.62]
3.2.6
effective filter medium area
area of the filter medium contained in the filter through which air passes during operation
Note 1 to entry: This excludes areas covered by sealant, spacers, struts, etc.
2 2
Note 2 to entry: Effective filter medium area is expressed in m (ft ).
[SOURCE: ISO 29464: 2024, 3.1.27]
3.3 Gravimetric efficiency
3.3.1
arrestance
measure of the ability of a filter to remove a standard test dust from the air passing through it under given
operating conditions
Note 1 to entry: This measure is expressed as a mass fraction.
[SOURCE: ISO 29464:2024, 3.2.15, modified — The preferred term "gravimetric arrestance" has been
removed; "mass percentage" has been replaced by "mass fraction" in note 1 to entry.]
3.3.2
initial arrestance
ratio of the mass of a standard test dust retained by the filter to the mass of dust fed after the first increment
of dust load
Note 1 to entry: This measure is expressed as a mass fraction.
Note 2 to entry: For example, see the procedure in ISO 29461-1 or this document.
[SOURCE: ISO 29464:2024, 3.2.17, modified — The preferred term "initial gravimetric arrestance" has
been removed; "mass percentage" has been replaced by "mass fraction" in note 1 to entry; the reference to
"ISO 16890-3" has been replaced by "this document" in note 2 to entry.]
3.3.3
total arrestance
value of arrestance (3.3.1) determined after the last loading cycle in a filter test
...