Passive Explosion Protection for Mobile Dust Collection Applications

The huge range and breadth of chemicals, minerals and other materials involved in the business of contract “toll” processing led a major custom processor in the Northeastern USA to explore various Explosion Protection options with IEP Technologies with the aim of building maximum flexibility and safety into their processing plants and operations. The problem of dust explosions is present in a surprising number of manufacturing processes whenever fine particulates, dispersed in air, are subjected to an ignition source within a contained environment. Of course, an initial step in any such situation is always to eliminate or control potential ignition sources wherever they are likely to occur (some examples include hot surfaces, open flames, friction or uncontrolled electrostatic discharges), but in many cases the explosion risk is ever present and therefore techniques to mitigate the potentially catastrophic effects must be employed.

The client in question provides a wide variety of toll processing services across many industrial sectors, including milling, size reduction, blending, extruding and packaging, and many of these processes involve potentially combustible powders. These not only pose industrial dust explosion hazards, but also the additional problems of fugitive dust emissions within the general working environment, creating accumulations on the ground and associated equipment surfaces, as well as unsafe working conditions for employees. In this case it was therefore clearly necessary to install a dust collection system, but in view of the varying requirements of specific production processes, a flexible “mobile” solution was sought so that it could be rapidly deployed to different product lines, depending on the needs of the process.

Second, on the main dust collection unit, an EVN Flameless Explosion Vent was sized to relieve the rapid pressure build up that would be created by an explosion event, while at the same time cooling and safely venting the resulting explosive gases. EVN Flameless Explosion Vents offer a practical solution when the equipment they are protecting is located inside a building or other area where standard explosion venting cannot be employed. The EVN Flameless vent uses a reclosable valve plate to release the pressure. The only components needing to be replaced after a deflagration would be the switch that detects the opening of the valve plate.

Third and finally, on the exhaust duct from the dust collection system, a Ventex Passive Isolation Float Valve was chosen to provide a mechanical barrier to protect against explosion propagation from the Dust Collector to connected ducting and equipment. During normal operation, the air/medium flows around the device, however in the case of an explosion the resulting pressure wave causes the device to close and lock, thereby preventing the spread of flame, burning materials and pressure.