Industrial vacuum cleaners are made to do two main things: remove all kinds of debris from the floor and remove all kinds of debris from the air in the working area. The first application was, to say the least, difficult, but the specific needs were met until systems and units were made that could handle almost any kind of waste from a factory floor.
At first, it was important to figure out how big the pieces of trash were. Then there were both wet and dry things that had to be taken care of at the same time. Extremely hot or corrosive elements were added to the mix and then radioactive debris had to be taken into account. The people who make vacuum cleaners had to deal with all of this trash, which was a byproduct of some kind of manufacturing or large-scale business. Often, the special requirements of a company were dealt with on a case-by-case basis at the same time as the new plant was being constructed.
In the same way, debris, dust, and tiny pieces of whatever was being made in the shop had to be taken out of the air, either to keep the workers safe or to collect and store valuable materials so they wouldn't be lost. Huge vacuum cleaners that looked more like air conditioning units than vacuum cleaners were put on the roofs and behind the factories. But they did the exact opposite of what they were supposed to do. Where air conditioners cool the air and then pump it into the factory to keep temperatures comfortable and under control, these huge vacuum cleaners pull the air out of the factories, either from the ceiling or from below the floor, filtering out the dust and making it easy to clean.
As part of their process, factories that make fine particulate debris need to make sure their workers can breathe safely, and factories that refine valuable metals need to collect the particulates so they can be used again in the future. Industrial vacuum cleaners of today do a good job at both tasks.
