FEATURE DUST & FUME EXTRACTION
ENSURING YOUR EMPLOYEES ‘GO HOME HEALTHY’
Businesses have a legal obligation to ensure safe working environments for the people they employ, but the UK’s Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is now taking a much more proactive approach to the prevention of work-related lung disease through its recently-launched ‘Go Home Healthy’ initiative, according to John Horsey of BOFA International
T
he campaign signals a step-change in the approach of the HSE to
workplace health. At its core is the re- training of HSE’s 175 roving inspectors to look beyond safety compliance by delving deeper into the health consequences of industrial process control. “For process industries, this should act as a prompt to reassess the effectiveness of their fume and dust extraction systems to ensure they are adequately protecting their people through the removal of solid particles (particulates), liquid droplets (usually aerosols or mists) and vapours or gases,” says John Horsey, technical manager at BOFA International, world-leaders in fume and dust extraction technologies. Typically, emissions are produced through activities such as laser and ink jet coding onto food and pharmaceuticals packaging, soldering, welding, laser cutting and engraving, spraying, and hand and mechanised grinding. Exposure levels to potentially harmful
airborne emissions are tightly mandated through the COSHH (Control of Substances Hazard to Health) regulations and expressed as workplace exposure limits (WELs). These limits are presented as time weighted averages for either 15 minutes or eight hours and in both ppm (parts per million) or mg/m3
(milligrams per m3 ).
“Employers are under a legal obligation to assess the risk to health created by work involving hazardous substances,
20 MARCH 2018 | FACTORY EQUIPMENT
John Horsey is technical manager at BOFA International, a world- leading UK business that meets the fume and dust extraction needs of multiple industry sectors in over 100 countries. The company won a Queen’s Award for Innovation in 2017 for its iQ operating system
taking account of any relevant WELs,” says Horsey. “This means looking at the prevention or control of exposure to such substances either by doing away with the process; changing the process (by enclosing it for example); installing local exhaust ventilation (LEV) and; as a last resort, using personal protection equipment.
“Beyond associated health risks, dust in
particular is the enemy of process-based operations because it can impact productivity significantly by causing contamination to finished product and depositing extraneous matter on process- critical components. This will result in costly downtime, and create additional maintenance and remedial cleaning costs. Small particles in the non-visible range (<30um) are the most hazardous. “The key decision for engineering and
health and safety managers is to evaluate the most effective means of extracting airborne emissions, both for operator safety and for efficiency.” Typically, these options would include captor hoods, which depend upon a capture velocity in front of a nozzle; receptor hoods, which use the movement of particles / droplets towards the device to capture them; partial enclosures, which extract contaminants typically for hand grinding and finishing; and full enclosures matched to the needs of automated production in say the laser coding or PCB manufacture.
Filtration technology is also advancing,
for example through BOFA’s patented DeepPleat Duo pre-filtration, which uses reverse airflow operation to reduce the velocity of contaminant as it enters the filter chamber. This means that larger particulates fall into the steel drop-out chamber, with smaller particles being drawn into the DeepPleat filtration media. The smallest particles pass into the main High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter, while vapours and gases are removed via a layer of activated carbon. The other key element for productivity
is extraction system control. BOFA’s iQ platform has introduced performance enhancements, such as independent filter status monitoring, to improve extraction efficiency. This ensures that filters are changed in a planned way, reducing the risk of downtime and lowering the overall cost of ownership. Employers in the UK must also ensure that systems are thoroughly inspected and tested at least once every 14 months, with a suitable record kept of the examination and tests for at least five years.
BOFA International
www.bofa.co.uk
BOFA International launched in 1987 as a small family business and has developed into a multi-award winning global leader in fume extraction and filtration, acknowledged as a leader in the industry.
/ FACTORYEQUIPMENT
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