Cardinal Air Design was approached by a Northwestern PA manufacturer to address issues with their aluminum shot blast process. They need to use a dust collector, but wanted to locate it inside.
Problem
- Aluminum shot blast produces combustible dust. There are a lot of regulations regarding dry dust collection and combustible metal dust. It is extremely expensive to have an explosion mitigation plan for cartridge or bag house units located inside the facility.
Solution
To solve the explosion mitigation issue, we decided to use a wet collector provide by Eurovac Clean Air Technologies based in Toronto, ON. Wet systems use water as their primary filtration. And they do not require special mitigation programs. This was a smaller unit (2,200 CFM) so it easily fit inside their shot blast room.
The aluminum dust settles at the bottom of a wet hopper. To make it easy to remove the dust/sludge, we installed a drag conveyor in the bottom of the dust collector hopper. The drag conveyor automatically removes the aluminum dust from the collector. They are a very traditional and reliable way to remove product from a piece of machinery, and are used in many applications for scrap removal.
Drag conveyors have a are relatively slow belt velocity, which gives the aluminum particulate time to dry out a little before it dumps it into the 55-gallon storage container. This provided our customer with a safe, affordable, NFPA compliant dust collector that is almost maintenance free.
The customer had an existing after filter bag assembly that we exhausted the filtered air into, thus adding another layer of protection to their air quality.
If you have aluminum dust, and want to keep your dust collector inside, a wet collector may be the answer!
If you have dust issues, we can help!
