When ignitable material has to be taken from bins, to be conveyed and transferred and to be fed into processing machines, special explosion risk related key factors have to be taken into consideration and to be solved most securely for daily operation.
Volkmann is one of the leading manufacturers of the most secure systems for powder handling and explosion risk protection and prevention. Our ranges of Vacuum Conveyors have been the first on the market which were fully certified under European ATEX regulation for all dust and soon later also gas explosion zones. Customers know that we care much about safety and come to us for training in operators’ seminars for good and safe daily usage and maintenance of our systems as well as process planners’ seminars with the theory of how and why it comes to explosions, the general overview on the design of safe systems in the field of powder handling.
Conveying Of Bulk Material in Hazardous Areas
When powders and bulk materials are conveyed or loaded inside explosive and hazardous areas, special aspects must be considered to avoid electric discharges caused by the electrostatically charged product.
- What are the surrounding conditions at the loading and unloading point?
- Is the product static chargeable?
- What happens with the product during the transport and unloading?
Special precautions may be necessary, if inflammable atmospheres and gases are present in addition to the material to be conveyed.
Volkmann offers specific and safe best practice solutions and Vacuum Conveying systems for such applications. All Volkmann VS and PPC Vacuum Conveyors are ATEX-certified as standard and can be regarded “explosion-safe” for all dust explosion areas/zones (for conveying materials with MIE >1 mJ; MIE = minimum ignition energy) and if no inflammable gases are present.
Additionally, Volkmann offers special Vacuum Conveyors with inerting system for such applications where solvents or inflammable gas atmospheres occur and need to be considered. These Special Conveyors can even load powders and granulate materials into reactors with a solvent/alcohol atmosphere inside (for Explosion Zone 0* and 1). However, in such critical applications the conveyor is determined by local demands for the conveying task.
( * Feeding into a „Zone 0“ requires further inerting. Typically, Zone 0 is specified by the operator’s explosion and safety guideline, though inertisation is done already.)
Volkmann Vacuum Conveyors for safe use with hazardous materials and environments:
- free of ignition sources
- operate completely pneumatic without electricity
- completely electrical conductive design
- small interior filling volumes
- low transportation speeds
- generate no heat
- no hot surfaces
- no rotary parts
- easy to control and to operate
