Dust Collection
Dust collection minimizes air particle contamination in workshops, plants and manufacturing facilities. Particles are released from material processing in nearly every fabrication industry, from large wood shaving or metal shaving particles to fine, respirable chemicals and smoke particles. Air particles released during manufacturing processes are hazardous to both worker and equipment health, quickly leading to a number of problems if particles are not captured and filtered from facility air. Dust collection addresses this problem by drawing contaminated air through a filter, trapping harmful particles and releasing clean air back onto the work floor. Applications requiring dust collection include dust capturing, separating and filtering explosive media, metalworking chips or fluid, toxic media, product recovery, scrap metal recycling, chemical processing and steel sintering. Dust collection is a vital process for coal handling, cement fabrication, metal fabrication, mining, chemical processing, woodworking, recycling and agricultural industries, among many others.
Any process which emits smoke, dust or particles into the air is held by industry-specific state OSHA regulations to filter facility air. Dust collection helps workplaces keep to OSHA clean air standards. Different types of dust collectors can be used in dust collection systems including baghouses, cyclone dust collectors, jet dust collectors and portable dust collectors. Baghouses, the most common dust collector design, draw contaminated air in through ducts to a hopper-shaped baghouse containing fabric filters. The air is pulled through the fabric bags by a vacuum-creating fan, leaving behind dust, smoke and particles; clean air exits through the fan at the outlet, while dust particles settle into an airlock at the bottom of the hopper. Similarly, jet dust collectors are baghouses which use jets of reversed air to shake the dust-caked fabric bag filters free of dirt. Cyclone dust collectors are inertial separators which use centrifugal, or cyclonic, air movement within a hopper-shaped chamber to separate particles from the air; the particles, being heavier than air molecules, are thrown against the outer wall of the hopper and fall to the bottom, where they are collected. Portable dust collectors, which generally use fabric filters, can be moved around to various workstations for localized dust collection.
For individual dust collection processes, downdraft tables are work tables used for stationary dust collection in a particular workspace; processes such as welding and wood sawing are performed over this table, which captures dust particles in the constant stream of air which is pulled down through the table's filtering body. For dust collection is large facilities, dust collectors are usually incorporated into dust collecting systems, which are central units formed through dust collectors and connected by dust collecting equipment such as overhead ductwork, capture arms and suction hoods. As the dust collection industry advances, smaller and more efficient filtering equipment is being developed to meet increasingly strict environmental regulations. The benefits of employing effective, efficient dust collection in one's facility can be seen in equipment longevity and worker health, saving companies significant maintenance and worker compensation costs.