Construction, renovation, agriculture and demolition situations often produce dust from a variety of sources, and that dust can pose fairly serious health risks to employees. In some cases acute and chronic diseases, like sarcoidosis, coal miner’s pneumoconiosis, silicosis, asbestosis or others can develop.
How Dust Suppression Systems Work
There are three general ways to suppress or control dust: containment, collection and suppression. They can be used separately, in isolation, or combined, depending on variables like budget, dust source and circumstance, and effectiveness.
Structural Containment of Dust
This can be a costly approach, as it requires the permanent closure of the sides and sometimes top of the structure.
Dust Collection
Dust-filled air streams are run through ductwork to a location where it is possible collect and remove the dust.
Wet Dust Suppression Systems
Dust can be wetted before it is airborne, which is called surface wetting, or after it is airborne. The latter principle involves spraying tiny droplets of water into airborne dust. When the dust and water particles collide, the idea is that they stick to one another, falling out of the air and onto the ground. There are several issues that impact the effectiveness of this approach, such as the particles being swept around one another by airflow, and electrostatic forces that may lead the particles to repel one another.
Fugitive Dust
Dust can be made up of large, heavier particles that will accumulate onto a surface and settle out of the air, or smaller particles that are so light they can hang in the air almost indefinitely.
The two main types of dust on a jobsite are fibrogenic dust, and inert dust. Fibrogenic dust is toxic biologically and unless removed from the lungs promptly can permanently harm the proper functioning capacity of the lungs. Inert dust contains less than one percent quartz, and the negative health impacts from inert dust exposure are often reversible.
Slag Dust
Iron production creates a non-metallic byproduct called slag dust which contains chemicals like titanium oxide, chromium and sulfur compounds and manganese oxide. If you are exposed to slag dust you may experience acute or chronic inhalation effect, eye or skin irritation.
Regardless of the dust mitigation approach, even partial elimination of dust can dramatically improve health outcomes for workers who would otherwise be exposed to dust particles.
Fogco Systems has years of experience providing dust suppression, misting and fog systems.
