This case study looks at a removing chemical powder dust with a cartridge dust collector. A low maintenance and highly efficient system that uses easily accessible filters.
A local company that mixes chemicals for a plastic extrusion process contacted us at Precision Industrial Services to see if we could help them with their house keeping and dust collection project. After viewing their process we went to work to design a system that would effectively and efficiently capture the fugitive dust that was produced by their operations.
The first job was to specify the filtration equipment. The chemical dust was a fine powder with a medium dust load volume. We decided to partner with Air Cleaning Technology. We sized a horizontal cartridge down flow dust collector. This style of dust collector has a small footprint, the filters are very easy to change, and the maintenance is very low.
We had to take into consideration the characteristics of the dust that we would be collecting. They were using various types of chemicals, some which were flammable so we had to protect the system with an explosion isolation damper in the ductwork and an explosion relief vent on the dust collector.
After we had selected the filtration equipment itwas time to turn our attention to the design of the interior ductwork. This is the most important part of the design because the sizing of the ductwork and design of the capture hoods will ensure that there is proper capture velocity and carrying velocity throughout the system. We had to design a hood for the bag dump station and we chose to use w movable dust extraction arm for another part of the process.
The most challenging part of the ductwork design was underneath the extruder. There were 3 small dust ports to pull from as well as a large area that needed a fume extraction hood and another smaller area, which needed a movable fume extraction arm. All this had to be fit in a small area, but there is always a way to get it done. So we sharpened our pencils and figured out a way to supply the customer with all their wants and needs.
The end product was an efficiently designed system that did a great job at keeping the fugitive chemical dust out of the air.