Chracterisation of Airborne Dusts in a Filler Plant in respect of their Captioning and Filtering

Dust produced during several industrial processes represents nowadays a safety problem of increasing interest. The risk for the workers increases as increase their involvement in operation and/or process phases where dust presence is relevant. Filler industry can be assumed as a typical case. In the production of micronised products (filler), in fact, big quantity of dust is naturally generated. The identification of the areas of the plant where the workers are more at risk for inhalation, together with a “full” characterisation of airborne dust, represents a primary goal to produce and set up efficient captioning-filtering devices finalised to create better environmental conditions for the workers. With reference to one of the most dusty environment (sacking-pallets-making area) of a limestone filler plant, a new “smart” dust caption system was designed, installed and its efficiency evaluated. Dust concentration and size class distribution measurements have been carried out, in different operative (different filler products handling) and different environment conditions (with and without “smart filter” operating) conditions. Handled products and produced airborne dusts have been also characterised. The results showed as a full monitoring of dusts, together with a control logic embedding original material and dust-process-related characteristics, can dramatically reduce the risk for the workers to dust exposure.