Eliminating the
wood dust hazard

Sawing, milling, drilling, turning, and sanding wood creates chips and dust.

The finer the material produced, the more problematic it is.

Fine particles in the air can affect the health of employees: respiratory diseases such as asthma, nasal cancer are recognized occupational diseases. Stirred-up dust can also combine with oxygen in the ambient air to form an explosive mixture. Even a small spark from a flipped switch or an electrostatic charge can cause a disaster.

Explosions and fires are a regular occurrence in sawmills and wood-processing plants, and cause injury to people.

A lurking danger

Any area of production where wood is mechanically processed is at risk from wood dust explosions. Explosions can occur during cutting, milling, drilling, or grinding. The finer the wood dust produced, the less the energy required to ignite the mixture.

Extraction and separation of dusts through powerful, professional dust collection reduces health and explosion risks in the workplace. Surface-loading filters such as cartridge filters and bag filters ensure efficient filtration in areas affected by high volumes of dust. National regulations govern the basic handling of wood dust. In Germany, the relevant regulation is TRGS 553.

image of a production line of the wooden floor factory

Conductive cartridges for maximum safety

ATEX guidelines also ensure operational safety of filter elements in potentially explosive atmospheres.

These comprise the ATEX Workers’ Protection Directive (1999/92/EC) and the ATEX Equipment and Protective Systems Directive (2014/34/EU). They regulate which areas in industrial plants should be classified as potentially explosive, and which equipment, components, and protective systems may be used in such areas. They also stipulate that filter elements must have certain electrostatic properties.

Freudenberg Filtration Technologies offers a wide range of conductive filter cartridges and filter bags with filter media that are regularly inspected by independent testing bodies. To ensure maximum safety, any cartridge that comprises of a large number of components other than the filter medium is subjected to an end-of-production test to assess the conductive connection of all its conductive components.

Such cartridges meet all ATEX requirements and are the perfect solution when safety and performance are of equal importance – as is the case with wood production.