Combustible Dust Policy Institute Blog

A great resource of information on the subject of combustible dust is a blog provided by the Combustible Dust Policy Institute. They site that in 2008, information obtained through media reports indicated 200+ combustible dust related fires and explosions in the grain, manufacturing, utility and non-manufacturing sectors. Their goal on this complex subject is to bring forth a situational awareness to all stakeholders, which will hopefully lessen the occurence and reduce the severity of future accidents.

If you need to get an industrial dust collection system for your shop or factory and suspect that your dust is flammable or explosive, visit and follow the Combustible Dust Policy Institute Blog.

Trends in Pleated Cartridge Filters

If you already own an industrial dust collector, choosing the right pleated cartridge filter can improve your cartridge collector's dust capture efficiency, help it operate more reliably, and reduce its energy and maintenance requirements. To help you make an informed choice, the article Trends in Pleated Cartridge Filters discusses some recent advances in pleated cartridge filter technology.

Captioned photos and illustrations of the filters enhance this article.

Dust Collectors for Blasting

Dust collection in blasting applications varies from the types of blasting such as wheel blasters, air blasters and cabinet blasters to the blasting media itself like sand, steel, plastic, slag and various shot.

There are special safety considerations for aluminum blasting and blasting with silica sand. When recirculating air, precautions should be taken to meet all OSHA and government guidelines...

Read more on Dust Collectors for Blasting.

New Explosion Venting Requirements

The article Five Ways New Explosion Venting Requirements For Dust Collectors Affect You tells you what you need to know about the new NFPA 68 standard on explosion venting for combustible dusts. This information can help you better understand what's changed in this revised standard and how it will affect your dust collection choices today and in the future.

Lunch-n-Learn Events Provide On-site Education

Companies who need an industrial dust or fume collector can greatly benefit from a "lunch-n-learn" event. This is when a dust collector manufacturer brings an actual dust collection demo unit to a customer location, meets with all the involved company personnel at the same time to address issues, answer questions - and eat lunch!

Companies invest very few man hours because there's no travel involved to meet off-site. Everyone from the plant manager to the maintenance guy to the company president can participate together, learning and asking questions from their point of view. All can experience a hands-on demonstration of the dust collector and address their particular dust or fume collection challenge.

Read more at: Lunch-n-Learn Events

Dust Collector Filter Change-out

When shopping for an industrial dust collector, one of the considerations should be the maintenance involved. You can't "set it and forget it." Those filter cartridges will need to be changed eventually. Most industrial collection systems on the market have doors, knobs and other hardware that must be removed and put aside (read: lost) during the changing of the filters. Tools for clamping/unclamping for a good seal are often required as well.

Here's a short video on how the Farr APC Gold Series® dust collector filters are changed out:

No tools required. No knobs to lose or drop. No binding threads. Read more about this here on the website.

How a Cyclone Dust Collector Works

Cyclones are often used as prefilters to industrial cartridge dust collectors to remove larger particles of dust. But there is no filter media in it - so how does it work? Answer: Centrifugal force. Read the explanation here.

Cyclones are often used in woodworking applications as the primary dust collector. Wood "dust" can consist of everything from very fine power from sanding to chips and shavings from routers, jointers, molders, etc. But they are not just limited to woodworking.

Go to: How a Cyclone Dust Collector Works

Testing Your Dust

In today's regulatory climate, having your dust tested is not only good practice, it has become a necessity. How well do you know your dust? is an in-depth article that reviews two separate types of testing:

• Explosibility Testing - Used to determine whether a dust is combustible.


• Bench Testing - Pinpoints numerous physical properties of a dust type.

This article also discusses specialized testing, which may be dictated for highly unusual or trouble-prone applications. Finally, a summary on the proper collection of a dust sample is provided.

Read the article here.

Anatomy of a Cartridge Dust Collector

All those technical terms! There can be many components to an industrial cartridge dust collector system. This web page has a large photo with call-outs illustrating the basic components of a dust collection system.

Go to: Anatomy of a Dust Collector.

Choosing the Best System

Asking the Right Questions About Cartridge Dust Collection is a great article to start with if you are newly faced with buying an industrial dust collector. Choosing the best cartridge collection system for a given application involves research and attention to detail. This article reviews four key areas of investigation:

• Will the dust collector ensure compliance?
• Will it fix the problem?
• Will it perform reliably?
• Will it provide the best possible return on investment (ROI)?

Read the article here. It's also available as a download in PDF format.

Welcome!

Greetings! Farr APC understands its customers. No one every buys an industrial dust collector because they want to. They buy because they have to. Worker safety, equipment protection, not to mention tough new NFPA regulations and (OSHA) compliance with them to avoid factory dust explosions are some very important reasons to buy. (Do you have a choice?!)

But which dust or fume collection system should you buy? And from who? How are these things sized? Which are the most efficient, reliable and easiest to maintain? What are the regulations that I have to meet? All these are common questions that this blog was created to answer. In addition, our intent is to share relevant industry news that might be helpful to you if you are researching and gathering information about industrial dust collectors.

Here's a video about Farr APC and the growing concerns about industrial dust and fumes:

Thank you for following this blog.

Farr Air Pollution Control

www.farrapc.com