Page 22 - OHS, July/August 2024

IH: CHEMICAL SAFETY
Photo courtesy of VAC-U-MAX
Exploring Pneumatic Conveying Technology
for Dry Bulk Solids from a Health and
Safety Perspective
Common areas of increased profitability and safety when
implementing a vacuum conveying system for transport
of bulk dry materials.
BY DOAN PENDLETON
20 Occupational Health & Safety | JULY/AUGUST 2024
Workplace injuries in any or- ganization take a bite out of profits. There is a wealth of data, statistics and surveys from scores of organizations regarding occu- pational illness and injuries. The statistics re- garding the number of injuries and illnesses that occur on the job and purported annual costs of 250 billion dollars is astronomical and difficult to digest at an organizational level and can therefore dilute the significance of injury costs to a single organization.
To bring these costs closer to an organi- zational level it is necessary to first identify the most common injuries and illnesses in the manufacturing arena. In the goods producing industry, which accounts for account for 35 percent of all occupational illness and injury cases, “manual materials handling is the principal source of com- pensable injuries,” according to OSHA.
When practical, designing the hazard out of the process through engineering is the best practice for reducing them. While 4 out of 5 manual materials handling injuries affect the back (lifting, repetitive motion, slips and falls), when manually transporting bulk dry materials, additional safety hazards such as poor respiratory environment and fugitive dust problems — hazards that can be effectively eliminated with pneumatic conveying systems — are present.
Pneumatic conveyors use vacuum to gently and quickly move materials from point to point with nothing in the way to impede the efficiency of its movement. Used to convey, batch, and weigh dry ma- terials from fine powders to plastic pellets and caps, pneumatic conveyors consist of five basic pieces of equipment that come together to work as one – a pick up point, convey tubing, a vacuum receiver, a vacu- um producer and a control module.
From simple systems that semi-automate a process to more sophisticated systems that offer complete automation, improved safety always enters the equation when utilizing a pneumatic conveying system. While there is no single equation to determine the return on investment (ROI) that fits all organiza- tions engineering out a safety hazard, data does exist to help determine how pneumatic conveyors contribute to the bottom line in terms of reduced or eliminated hazards, and gains in productivity.
OSHA’s $afety Pays (SP) worksheet cal- culates costs associated with specific injuries and includes a dollar amount of additional
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