Chemical Engineering and Processing 44 (2005) 323326

Controlling dust emissions and explosion hazards in powder handling plants

Peter Wypych, Dave Cook , Paul Cooper
Centre for Bulk Solids and Particulate Technologies, Faculty of Engineering, University of Wollongong, Wollongong NSW 2522, Australia Received 27 August 2003; received in revised form 2 January 2004; accepted 11 February 2004 Available online 17 July 2004

Abstract This paper presents results from investigations into quantifying and modelling the dust generation and air entrainment mechanisms that occur during free-falling streams of material. Emphasis is placed on the effects of drop height and product temperature. This information is important for the efcient design and operation of dust control systems, as well as minimising the risk and severity of dust explosions. 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.
Keywords: Dust generation; Drop height; Product temperature

1. Introduction The efcient control of dust or particulate emissions in the workplace and general environment is becoming increasingly important in industry for many reasons: more stringent OH&S legislation; decreasing allowable emission levels; loss of material (e.g. spillage, dust emissions); risk of dust explosions when handling combustible solids; maintenance and clean-up costs; damage to process equipment; premature failure of dust control systems, especially for hot processes; aesthetics; increasing pressure from the government and/or community; society becoming more environmentally conscious. The design of a suitable dust control system for a particular application requires knowledge of dust generation and air entrainment. The interaction of these two parameters with the process (e.g. solids throughput, powder properties, temperature, drop height, velocity) also must be considered for this purpose. Unfortunately, the existing techniques to

predict such information are inaccurate and unreliable. This paper aims to: describe and examine dust generation and air entrainment mechanisms; present some of the latest research work and results in trying to quantify and model air entrainment and dust generation/control; examine process effects on dust generation; describe some techniques to minimise/eliminate dust generation and emissions (e.g. velocity control); explore the implications of the above ndings for dust explosion hazards. Some case studies are included to provide examples and also demonstrate some of the more important issues.

2. Dust generation and air entrainment One of the most difcult processes in which to control dust generation is that where a bulk material is dropped under free-fall conditions to impact on a stockpile or other surface. Examples of this type of situation are shown in Fig. 1. The approach generally taken to control the dust in such situations is to partially or fully enclose the process. A very common example of this is the case of conveyor transfer stations, where bulk material is dropped from the end of one conveyor onto the start of another. Even when only a

Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 2 4221 3488; fax: +61 2 4221 4577. E-mail address: peter wypych@uow.edu.au (D. Cook).

0255-2701/$ see front matter 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.cep.2004.02.026

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Fig. 1. Examples of dust generation processes involving free-fall of bulk material.

very small fraction of the parent bulk material is liberated as fugitive dust the total quantity of dust generated may be enormous due to the very large throughput of the parent material. For the designer of such enclosures there are two major questions that need to be answered: (a) what is the volume of dusty air that should be extracted from the enclosure? (b) what is the concentration of dust in the air? As yet, there is no reliable method of answering either of these questions. This paper considers the most fundamental situation of a product free falling under steady-state conditions from a hopper at a given height above a stockpile. It also examines briey the effect of product temperature on dust generation.
Fig. 2. Dust generation and air entrainment for falling stream of material.

3. Previous research The rst serious attempt to predict the quantity of air entrained by a falling stream theoretically was that of Hemeon [1]. Hemeon modelled the air entrainment process as one whereby the drag force exerted by each solid particle was essentially equal to that of a single particle falling through a quiescent uid. He deduced that the induced (entrained) air ow, Qind , is given by (converted here to SI units): Qind = 0.66g m(hA)2 (dp p )
1/3

are applied. This is a result of the inherent assumption that the ow in the stream is made up of particles that act independently, whereas the reality is that: the stream of particles form a relatively coherent stream, Fig. 2; and particles within the stream interact with the quiescent ambient to a much lesser extent than if they were falling independently through the uid.

m3 /s

(1)

4. Experimental facility and results Two experimental rigs were used for this study. The rst rig comprised a double-feed hopper arrangement to ensure a virtually constant mass ow rate of powder during each test. The hopper arrangement was mounted on a frame that could be raised or lowered to change drop height and was suspended on cables connected to three load cells to enable the mass ow rate to be recorded. The bulk material dropped through a hole in a shelf above the stockpile and air was extracted from underneath the shelf at a rate such that the air pressure under the shelf was kept exactly equal

where g = gravitational acceleration, m = mass ow rate of solids, h = drop height, A = cross-sectional area of material stream, dp = particle diameter and p = particle density. Tooker [2] then used this approach to formulate a means of calculating the extract air requirements for enclosures, such as conveyor transfer stations. The equations of Hemeon [1] and Tooker [2], and variations thereon, are used widely in industry. However, they generally grossly over-predict the rate of air entrainment unless empirical correction factors

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Fig. 3. Experimental rig used to measure entrained air and dust generation. Fig. 4. Specic air entrainment results of Smithers (x symbols) and Glutz ( symbols) using alumina with drop heights of 625650 mm.

to that of the external ambient air, as shown in Fig. 3. A pressure observation port between the space under the shelf and outside allowed the pressure to be equalised between the surrounding air and the underside of the shelf by smoke visualisation. Under these conditions, the volume of air extracted from beneath the shelf was equal to the total volume of air and bulk material falling through the aperture. A relatively inert and robust powder, alumina (median size = 96 m, particle density = 2465 kg/m3 ; loose-poured bulk density = 1010 kg/m3 ), was selected for testing. The second rig involved the release of approximately 2 kg of hot alumina from an electrically heated hopper in a sealed box. The alumina was dropped onto a plate at the bottom of the box and the dust liberated during the fall and subsequent impact was collected in petri dishes and weighed to determine the specic dust generation rate G = (dust liberated/mass of parent material). The motivation for this work came from the need to understand the fundamentals of dust generation during hot solids handling processes, such as those involved in cement and coke production.

Fig. 5. Dust generation from a falling stream of alumina as a function of temperature difference (drop height = 500 mm, mass = 2.0 kg).

5. Results and discussion The volume of entrained air was found to be proportional to the drop height raised to the power of approximately 5/3. This is in contrast to Eq. (1) where the expected index is 2/3 [3]. This is an important result and suggests that a better approach to modelling of the air entrainment process might come from the use of a modied plume theory. The specic air entrainment (i.e. air entrainment per unit mass of parent bulk material) was found to decrease with increasing mass ow rate of solids, Fig. 4. The solid line correlates the results of Smithers [4] and Glutz [5] and shows that specic air entrainment is proportional to m0.67 . If the particles in the falling stream behaved independently of one another, each interacting in the same way with the ambient air, then the specic air entrainment would be constant with respect to mass ow rate. The experimental results show that this is not the case.

The results of the experiments to determine how the rate of dust generation is inuenced by the temperature difference between the bulk material and the surrounding ambient air are shown in Fig. 5 [6]. Clearly, temperature difference has a very strong inuence on dust generation rates for materials with a relatively high proportion of nes. For the alumina used in these experiments a temperature difference of 140 C results in an increase in dust generation rate by approximately an order of magnitude. This could explain the premature failure of dust ltration systems on hot processes, where existing design and selection techniques could be grossly under-estimating actual dust loadings.

6. Dust explosion hazards In many instances, it may be possible to reduce the risk and severity of dust explosions by minimising the generation and turbulence of dust. In a falling stream of material: the main core of falling powder is surrounded by a turbulent layer of ne dust, which escapes easily into the surrounding air, Fig. 2;

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air is entrained in the falling stream of dilating powder; the impact zone is a highly turbulent region where the entrained air is ejected into the atmosphere at relatively high velocity and carries with it a large amount of ne dust; considerable reductions in dust concentration and turbulence, as well as dust explosion risk and severity, can be achieved by minimising drop height and hence, the amount of entrained air, as demonstrated previously. The situation depicted in Fig. 2 is exacerbated for pneumatically lled bins. Here, the velocity at impact can be quite high, especially when the material reaches high level. Employing a large drop-out box or tee-bend can reduce the extent and severity of dust generation. Further reductions in dust loading, explosion risk and severity may be possible by using a tangential entry. For example, Hauert et al. [7] found that the reduced explosion pressures for the tangential pneumatic lling of wheat our and corn starch were 35 times smaller than those obtained with central lling. Signicant increases in dust also can occur during the dilute-phase transport (suspension ow) of granular materials, such as sugar and wheat. The relatively high transport velocities can cause particle attrition and a signicant increase in nes, as well as an increased level of electrostatic charge generation and risk of spark ignition. Signicant reductions in velocity are achieved by pursuing the dense-phase (non-suspension) mode of ow. Here the particles are conveyed either in uidised dense-phase (e.g. for air-retentive powders, such as our and starch) or low-velocity slug-ow (e.g. for granular products, such as wheat and sugar). The following typical operating conditions for wheat conveyed through a 105 mm 96 m long pipeline demonstrate the possible (velocity) differences between dilute-phase and dense-phase. Dilute-phase (suspension ow): solids mass ow = 6 t h1 , air mass ow = 0.260 kg s1 , solids loading = 6, pipeline pressure drop = 30 kPa, transport velocity = 19.325.0 m s1 . Dense-phase (low-velocity slug-ow): solids mass ow = 6 t h1 , air mass ow = 0.065 kg s1 , solids loading = 26, pipeline pressure drop = 120 kPa, air velocity = 2.9 to 6.3 m s1 . In addition to the obvious advantages of reduced air ow, velocity and hence, power, dense-phase offers the following additional benets. Particle velocity is controlled easily in the range 0.252 m s1 .

Particle damage and dust generation are extremely low and often unable to be detected (e.g. sugar crystals can be conveyed without even being scratched). Electrostatic charge generation and risk of spark ignition are very low. The concentration of particles inside the pipeline is extremely high and beyond the upper explosible limit (UEL). This forms a natural buffer zone or barrier for any explosion that may occur in a vessel at either end of the pipeline (i.e. ame propagation is unlikely). This could avoid the need for explosion suppression and/or isolation, which would be required normally for a dilute-phase or dust extraction system. The frequency and turbulence of particles striking the lter elements are extremely low. Filtration requirements (e.g. lter surface area) also are quite low. 7. Conclusions Free-falling bulk solids can produce large quantities of fugitive dust and comprise core and boundary layer regions. Specic air entrainment increases with drop height, but decreases with increasing solids mass ow rate. Higher temperatures or transport velocities increase dust generation rates dramatically. Signicant reductions in velocity and dust generation are achieved by selecting the dense-phase mode of ow. Such ndings should be considered for the efcient design and operation of dust control and explosion control systems.

References
[1] W.D.L. Hemeon, Plant and Process Ventilation, Industrial Press, New York, USA, 1963. [2] G.E. Tooker, Bulk Solids Handling 12 (1992) 227232. [3] P. Cooper, P.C. Arnold, Air entrainment and dust generation from a falling stream of bulk material, Kona Powder Particle 13 (1995) 125134. [4] T. Smithers, Generation of Dust from a Falling Stream of Material, BE Honours Thesis, Mechanical Engineering, University of Wollongong, 1994. [5] A. Glutz, Air Entrainment in Falling Streams of Material, BE Honours Thesis, Mechanical Engineering, University of Wollongong, 1995. [6] B. Perrin, Dust Generation from a Heated Bulk Solid, BE Honours Thesis, Mechanical Engineering, University of Wollongong, 1999. [7] F. Hauert, A. Vogl, S. Radandt, Dust cloud characterization and its inuence on the pressure-time-history in silos, Process Safety Progress 15 (1996) 178184.