Five Musts for Dusts: Dust Collection System Design Tips

Contained dust collection equipment is used in pharmaceutical facilities for a variety of reasons, from environmental compliance and employee health and safety to preventing cross-contamination of materials in multi-product manufacturing facilities.

Given these concerns, and the fact that many pharmaceutical dusts are potent and/or hazardous, contained dust collection systems are found in the majority of pharmaceutical processing facilities today. Such systems typically use safe-change containment for both the filter cartridges (bag-in/bag-out) and the discharge system underneath the collector (continuous liner technology).

By David Steil, pharmaceutical market manager, Camfil Air Pollution Control

New Video Center on Industrial Dust Collection

The "APC (Air Pollution Control) Video Center" is both informational and instructional. If you are faced with buying an industrial dust collector for your business or factory, watch the ones that may apply to you. Learn about the features to look for, dust testing, application focus, dust collector filters and more. There is a whole series of instructional videos on how to assemble and set up a dust colletor for operation. Heck, you'll even find some fun stuff here.

Collecting and Testing Dust

Testing dust is beneficial in many ways. By identifying the dust characteristics properly, you can determine the right type of collector (such as baghouse or cartridge system) and filtration media for your needs and determine the size equipment you need for optimial energy savings and operational efficiency. By using the right equipment, you can minimize maintenance problems and reduce emissioins while extending filter life.

The article Collecting and Testing Dust emphasizes the scientific approach to dust and fume collection by using dust sample testing as the basis for sound and accurate equipment selection. More often than not, equipment decisions are based solely on guesswork, on previous experience, or on general recommendation from suppliers. Finding the right dust collection system is a complex task affected by dozens of variables. The situation does not lend itself to guessing games.

This article, Collecting and Testing Dust, is also downloadable as a PDF file.

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.