SWR Engineering Keeps Manufacturer’s Air Safe

To avoid a potentially explosive risk, a PVC powder manufacturer has installed the AirSafe 2 dust monitoring system.

As part of its manufacturing process, large bags were filled with PVC powder. The mixture of powder is ignitable at 60 grams per cubic metre, which can potentially occur if a large bag breaks or the material begins to overflow. The safety risk to employees and equipment was deemed unacceptable, and so the company reached out to SWR Engineering to install the solution.

AirSafe 2 monitors the dust concentration in the ambient air, working best in indoor areas such as buildings, production sites, silos or boiler houses. The sensor is placed nearby the presumed dust source, allowing the filling plant to be permanently monitored. A switching point at 15 grams per cubic metre was pre-calibrated, which means that if a large bag was ruptured, the system is switched off before an ignitable concentration of the material could be reached.

The system measures dust particles by drawing in a current of air through the duct at around 100 cubic metres per hour. Particles carried by this current pass an integral electrodynamic dust sensor which generates a charge transfer to be used as the measurement signal. This signal is then converted to be used for display or control on a programmable logic controller.

It can be installed anywhere inside a room, with no need to maintain distance from units or walls.