Development of a Lower Pressure, Water-Powered Spot Scrubber for Mining Applications

Details

• Personal Author:
  Organiscak, J. A. ; Pollock, D. E.
• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Description:
  Water sprays and water powered scrubbers have both been utilized in the mining and milling industry to suppress airborne dust. Unconfined water sprays operated at lower water pressures of ?689 kPa (?100 psig) can be very effective at wetting the mine product at the dust source and significantly reducing the amount of respirable dust that becomes airborne. However, unconfined waters sprays can be somewhat ineffective in actually removing airborne dust from the air. On the other hand, water powered scrubbers operating at higher water pressures of ?1,724 kPa (?250 psig) in physical enclosures or ducts have previously been demonstrated to be very effective in removing airborne dust from the air. These higher operating water pressures are uncommon in many mines and mills, so their use is limited. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recently investigated the performance of a lower-pressure, water powered inline series spray scrubber for removing localized airborne dust emitted at the source. Results showed noticeable improvements in airborne dust capture efficiency through the operation o f multiple inline series hollow cone spray nozzles within a round duct or pipe at the same water pressure as a single spray. Operating hollow cone spray(s) at higher water pressures noticeably improved airflow through the scrubber and yielded some additional scrubber efficiency improvements. Thus, in-line spray scrubber efficiency trade-offs were observed to be made by altering spray power components of water pressure and/or quantity (number of sprays). Results show that, on average, up to 0.23 and 0.32 m3/s (484 and 679 cu ft per min) of airflow at 0.81 and 0.69 dust capture efficiencies can be achieved with three 81° and 33°hollow cone inline series sprays, respectively, operating at 1,655 kPa (240 psig).
• Subjects:
  Mining
• Source:
  2005 SME Annual Meeting, February 28 - March 2, Salt Lake City, Utah, preprint 05-103. Littleton, CO, Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Inc., 2005 Feb; :1-9
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Conference Publications
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20032624
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:12162d9cce011a95155a521c5cded55d0ed5c9c26ccb943ff59c0178e35112d8bc978a118aefb0950d7c1233e0cc65fae80410bbb889416ab76315f0787b4d07
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/8666/cdc_8666_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1014.38 KB ]