Organic dust substances - such as sugar, flour, grains, spices and wood - are just as flammable as metallic dust. Minimizing the risk of serious or even fatal explosions requires increased safety awareness among managers and operators and the use of Mobile Fume Extractors to remove dust from the production process.
Organic dust is very common in food production and belongs to combustible dust
In fact, any kind of organic dust can explode in dry conditions. Some ingredients used in food may seem harmless, but they are also combustible dust. Many industrial food processing plants add large amounts of spices, flavorings and starches to their products, and bags and other containers often release large amounts of dust during processing. Mixing these substances with relatively moist products, such as fresh fruit or ground meat, can eliminate the risk of explosion. But dust can burn and can cause an explosion if it comes into contact with an overheated engine, surface area or even a cigarette butt.
Fine, dry dust can form quickly and accumulate in large amounts
At low humidity, even safe dust materials can explode.
Moland delivered the Moland Wisdom dust system to a Anhui tobacco company, whose products are made from moist tobacco powder. Because the powder usually contains a relatively high amount of water, it was not initially thought likely to explode. However, in the manufacturing and packaging process, there will be a certain degree of leakage. Once exposed to the outdoor environment, tobacco powder will quickly become very dry, usually losing more than 90% of its moisture within half an hour.
The customer previously used a high-vacuum dust removal filter system that removed the extremely dry dust about once an hour. Unfortunately, the dust removal system works at such a high speed that the particles become more granular as they pass through the pipes, resulting in a large amount of fine combustible dust accumulating in the pipes and ash buckets of the system. In addition, the rubberized cloth filters used to collect particles at the time often burst, so they had to be replaced at least twice a year.
The finer the dust, the greater the risk of an explosion
When dust passes through pipes, static electricity is generated. When too much dust accumulates in pipes or filters over time, it can also lead to serious explosion accidents.
Tobacco product manufacturers take a test of their main product, grind it into a very fine dust, and send it to a company for analysis. During the test, the dust is ignited to measure its KST value. This value indicates the maximum rate of bar pressure rise, making it possible to estimate the expected behavior of dust, especially the likelihood and power of explosion.
Tobacco dust has a KST of about 70, significantly higher than dust produced by things like wood chips and rice. However, it is worth pointing out that flour and sugar have a KST value of about 150.
The use of
Moland Wisdom dust system with a detonation disc helps to minimize the impact of dust explosions
According to the risk assessment and conclusion, the tobacco dust produced during the customer's production process has the risk of explosion. The customer decided to use the
Moland Wisdom dust system. Although dust removers do not prevent dust explosions, they disperse the flames and thermals generated in the explosion, preventing the explosion from spreading further to other production areas. After that, the filter must be replaced and the cause of the explosion thoroughly investigated. Production could resume within 24 hours. The vacuum system also collects excess tobacco powder and filters it for safe and easy storage.
Without devices such as
Moland Wisdom dust system, the damage to personnel and equipment would have been significant and would have resulted in a prolonged shutdown of production.
Several key factors to prevent combustible dust explosion
The most important point to prevent combustible dust explosion is to cultivate safety awareness. Although different companies, industries and regions to the understanding of the problem still exists very big difference, but fortunately, people is a growing awareness of this issue, a growing number of companies in workplace safety assessment, as a potential risk factors, it will consider the dust and its content in the process of its production.
Regular cleaning is essential and helps to provide a safe and healthy environment for workers, equipment and products. The installation of appropriate dust collecting, pumping and discharging devices and dust removal filters can prevent the diffusion and accumulation of dust, and avoid explosion accidents and personnel exposure to smoke and other harmful substances.
In addition to safety awareness, dust removal equipment and cleaning procedures, the complexity of the production system itself is a factor that should be considered when setting up new plants and workshops. An intuitive and relatively easy to operate system will reduce damage, errors, and maintenance work.
Shandong Moland Environmental Tech Co.,Ltd
