Understanding Microns

What Is A Micron? How Big Or Small Is It?

Throughout this website you'll hear me talking about microns, particularly in relation to filtration. But what exactly is a micron?

A micron is another way of saying a micrometre, which is one-millionth of a metre.

When relating to filters, microns represent the size of the "holes" in the filter media. Think of a sieve. The bigger the holes in the sieve, the larger the items that can pass through it.

Which Is Finer? One Micron Or 100 Microns?

It's easy to get confused when it it comes to filters. It's easy to imagine that 100 microns would be a better filter than 1 micron, but this is the exact opposite. Again think in terms of the hole size in the filter medium. If a micron is a unit of measure, then ten microns must be ten times bigger than one micron, and one hundred microns must be ten times bigger than ten microns.

So, if a filter is 100 microns, the holes that do the filtering are 100 times bigger than those found in a one micron filter.

Filtering In Microns Made Easy

Still confused? Okay, so I'm not a scientist and my explanation may be a little off, so here's a quick guide:

• Coarse Filtering = 500 Microns, 200 Microns, 100 Microns
• Medium Filtering = 50 Microns, 20 Microns
• Fine Filtering = 5 Microns, One Micron

So, in a nutshell, you want a high micron filter the roughly filter out big stuff, and you want a low micron filter for fine filtration.