Conveyor dust can be a massive problem for mine superintendents and port managers. There are the inevitable health and safety issues, pressure from the public (particularly around ports) and intense scrutiny by the Environmental Protection Authority.
On top of that, there are operational issues.
Conveyors are purpose-built to perform in the harshest environments, but adding unnecessary dust and material build up to bearings, motors and other moving parts can lead to breakdowns, malfunctions and costly downtime.
However, the issues are not insurmountable; the problem of dust from conveyors can be solved using cutting edge dust suppression sprays… and that’s where Dust-A-Side Australia excel. Conveyors play many roles in a mining operation and Dust-A-Side Australia has the capacity to deliver dust suppression systems from pit to port.
Before
After
As you’ll read in our Dust Suppression | Dust Prevention Comparison Sheet, there are two types of dust control systems – low pressure systems and high pressure systems.
Low pressure systems are ideal for dust prevention.
They pre-wet the material and increase the moisture/humidity content, usually at close range on conveyors.
High pressure systems use lower volumes of water at high pressure to add humidity to the air along conveyors and at transfer points to subdue airborne dust particles.
Many mining operations require both systems; low pressure to settle coarser dust (10 microns and larger) and high pressure dust suppression sprays to remove or reduce the more dangerous respirable dust.
The advantages of high pressure dust suppression sprays
High pressure dust suppression sprays are ideal when it isn’t possible or practical to pre-wet material.
For example, when there are challenges with:
- Water availability
- Pooling of water, and
- Blockages in the downstream materials handling process caused by hang-up of material.
Furthermore, high pressure dust suppression sprays subdue the super-fine fugitive dust (less than 10 microns) that can cause eye irritation, vision impairment, significant health risks and environmental degradation.
They minimise water usage and wastage, prevent excessive water pooling and reduce the likelihood of blockages caused by cloggy, wet material.
With high pressure dust suppression sprays configured to your specific needs, you can increase the availability of your processing or materials handling operations, confident that dust will NOT be an issue.
How to make dust suppression sprays even more effective
With over 200 fully customised dust suppression systems in use globally, from conveyors to transfer stations at the world’s largest mines, Dust-A-Side Australia is an acknowledged leader in this field.
As innovative as these dust misting systems are – triggered by remote control sensors and featuring programmable logic controllers with fully automated, self-cleaning water filtration – there is a way to enhance the system’s performance.
And that’s to incorporate HydroWet, a surface active agent that has been proven to be supremely reliable, efficient and cost-effective.
As you can see from these diagrams, HydroWet helps to break the surface tension of water particles, leading to smaller water droplets (between 5 and 10 microns) that attract dust particles to them, via agglomeration.
This is the key to its effectiveness.
Dust suppression sprays work best when the dust particles and atomised water droplets are of equivalent size, so they will combine and fall to the ground.
If the droplets are too large they will displace too much air, forcing the dust particles to flow around them.
Best of all, only a small amount of HydroWet is required to have the desired effect.This process is particularly effective when managing hydrophobic materials such as coal and other fine ores.
In fact, Dust-A-Side Australia have case studies which show an impressive 80% reduction in respirable dust emanating from a coal mine conveyor after installation of a system using HydroWet-enhanced dust suppression sprays.
Talk to Dust-A-Side Australia about dust suppression spray solutions for your site
To find out how you can quantifiably improve workplace health and safety, improve the housekeeping of your operations by minimising pooling of water, and improve community/EPA relations by eliminating or reducing dust on your conveyors, contact Dust-A-Side Australia today.
We’ll happily supply you with an obligation-free report to design a dust suppression system tailored specifically to your mining operation, or if your existing system is operational, advise you on how it can be enhanced to improve its effectiveness.
Call us now on 1800 662 387 or simply click here to contact us.
