A central Mississippi company was dealing with combustible dust collection problems. They had several super sack and bag dump stations that required dust collection. Before coming to Air Solutions, they had dust collection on the bag dump stations that was integral to each bag dump. Even though they had dust control, the system was not compliant with the OSHA National Emphasis Program (NEP). Their system was not up to standards because as the bag dumping was occurring and after it finished, the bag dump door was closed. Then, the dust that was collected on the filters would be removed by the reverse pulse cleaning system. This cleaning process caused a dust cloud of combustible dust inside the bag dump stations. If static electricity or another source of ignition occurred, it would have possibly caused deflagration inside each bag dump.
Realizing this system needed a solution, the Mississippi company called on Air Solutions to solve their problems. The objectives were clear: Capture dust from the processes and contain combustible dust inside the facility safely.
After meeting with the client, Air Solutions was able to uncover all the issues with their current system and create a new plan to meet OSHA requirements. A new system design was proposed.
First, the internal dust collectors were removed from each bag dump station. Then, each bag dump station was ducted to a new central cartridge dust collector system with a backward inclined fan outside the facility. All the bag dumps and sack dump stations had pneumatic conveying systems which had air inlet valves to allow the conveying system to move the material for further processing. These air inlet valves would open and close when conveying which would allow material inside the vertical lines to drop down and leak out of the valves into the plant. To solve this issue Air Solutions provided custom hoods to capture the dust generated at all of these points in the system.
All of the newly installed cartridge dust collectors were equipped with explosion isolation and protection systems to comply with the OSHA NEP. They were also integrated with energy saving controls to conserve compressed air and the electrical cost of running the system. The system air flows were balanced to the designed flow rates. The controls were set up to run the systems maintaining this designed flow rate throughout the life of the filters. Dust collectors and baghouse systems are designed for the worst case scenario – as if they are at the highest pressure drop with the filters completely loaded or blinded and ready to be changed. This design process is typical so the systems can operate up to that fully loaded filter condition. Without these energy saving controls, the system would have continuing issues. These problems could include excessive air flow leading to reduced filter life, low system conveying velocities causing material build up in ducting and high energy cost.
After the system was fully installed and running smoothly, the Mississippi company was happy with the cost saving and OSHA compliant results! Let the team at Air Solutions work to come up with a dust collection system for you and your facility that improves your industrial process, helps keep workspaces clean, and improve your bottom line. Contact Us Today!