The Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) has recently published a white paper –‘Control of fire and explosion risk in animal feed manufacturing plants and processes’ - to assist the operators and designers of animal feed manufacturing plants and processes in preventing fires and explosions and to comply with their legal duties under the Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations 2002 (DSEAR).
According to the report, even though UK incidents are rare, across the world there are examples of significant dust explosions in the grain and milling industry including:
- 11 people killed when 28 concrete grain silos were destroyed at Blaye in France in 1998
- One person killed and five injured as well as extensive damage caused to a feed mill at Rockmart USA in 2016
- Five killed and 12 seriously injured at the Didion Plant in Wisconsin in 2017
Page 26 of the report looks at dust control equipment in the agricultural industry and the requirements from the supplier to ensure the dust control units are designed with solutions to mitigate potential explosions. Many dust collector applications involve handling or working within atmospheres that are potentially explosive, and equipment supplied must be safe for use in these environments and must comply with the ATEX regulations.
The ATEX directive classifies zoned areas and any equipment provided should be selected and used on the basis that is does not create an ignition source for the explosive atmosphere during its intended use, and the frequency that the atmosphere is present.
“In line with these directives, all of Dustcheck’s process filters and dust collector ranges can be supplied with ATEX rated options meaning potentially explosive and volatile atmospheres can be handled safely, which will ensure compliance with the Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations (DSEAR) where applicable,” commented Andy Darby, Dustcheck Product Manager.
“In terms of explosion mitigation, we design our self-contained dust collector products with integral explosion relief as required and to ensure the safety of filters placed internally, we can additionally specify a product from our protection filter range to act as a secondary filter should there be an unexpected primary filter failure,” he added.
The CFC 328 Series - a range of in-line protection filters – have been designed to provide a ‘secondary’ defence to process air systems such as protection of exhauster units on vacuum conveying systems, or prevention of emissions to atmosphere in the event of a primary filter fault.
Established in 1978, the Dustcheck brand, manufactured by Filtermist Limited, provides effective bespoke solutions for all dust control and containment requirements.
Find out more by visiting: www.dustcheck.com or speak to the team on 01952 290500.