Dust-A-Side Fights Airborne Dust Across Plants and Conveyors
As the dry, windy weeks before the summer rains stretch on across much of South Africa's interior, Dust-A-Side is using October to look closely at the places where dust is born as material moves through a site: conveyors, transfer points, crushers, tip areas and stockpiles. For mines, quarries, process plants and bulk terminals caught in that pre-rain window, airborne dust stays a daily problem that touches visibility, worker health and the communities next door.
Haul roads tend to draw the bulk of the attention in any dust programme, yet Dust-A-Side's work stretches from pit to port. Its offering spans binders and non-binders for roads, as well as mist systems, fog cannons and wetting agents built for the plant, processing and materials handling parts of an operation.
Why material handling points need their own approach
At a conveyor or crusher, dust does not act the way it does on a road. It comes off in concentrated bursts whenever ore and other material is dropped, tipped or crushed, and the wind takes hold of it almost immediately. Good dust control at these spots has to grab the fine particles while they are still airborne and stop their travel, all without drenching the material or the machinery.
For this, Dust-A-Side provides two kinds of system, and plenty of sites run both together.
High pressure mist systems
A high pressure dust suppression system takes small volumes of water and atomises them at pressures above 40 bar, producing a fine mist. That mist grabs airborne dust through agglomeration and wraps the material handling point in a curtain that keeps the dust from moving on.
The company points to suppression as the first choice at material handling points precisely because it draws so little water, which counts for a great deal where water is in short supply. It also keeps the material dry, so conveyors stay clear and chutes do not block. Dust-A-Side adds that a suppression system is less costly to install and maintain than dust extraction, offers more flexibility than rival methods, and can even serve as a coolant for furnace discharge material riding the conveyors.
The list of uses is long: stockpiles, conveyors, rail wagons, transfer points, tipping areas, loading terminals, storage facilities, demolition sites, drilling and blasting sites, excavations, quarries and rock crushing plants. Among the stated benefits are lower respirable and visible dust, minimal water use, reduced conveyor slippage, fewer chute and screen blockages, no surplus moisture in the ore, tidier housekeeping and safer working areas while the plant runs.
Low pressure mist systems
Low pressure systems go the other way. They apply larger volumes of water below 10 bar to pre-wet material at close quarters, typically on conveyors or at the head of a transfer point. The droplets here are bigger, which is why they are frequently called wetting systems. Wind and temperature have less bearing on how well they perform, and their maintenance costs sit slightly below those of other systems, which makes them a good fit at stockpile discharge conveyors and comparable points.
Fog cannons for large open areas
When dust is scattered over a broad area, Dust-A-Side turns to fog cannons, sometimes called mist cannons. A fog cannon forces highly pressurised water through jet nozzles, breaking it into a fine mist that a powerful fan drives out over a distance. Because the droplet size is matched to visible and respirable dust particles, the result is large-scale dust suppression across open ground.
These units are portable and can sit on a trailer or skid. They oscillate and offer adjustable throw angles, letting them track shifting wind or move alongside whatever is kicking up the dust. One frequent role is acting as a mist blanket or curtain standing between operations and nearby communities. Typical settings include plant tip areas, opencast blasting areas, stockpiles and stockyards, mine dumps, industrial plants and tailings or waste dams. Dust-A-Side notes that a fog cannon gets by on far less water than low pressure watering and puts no harsh chemicals into the surroundings.
Surfactants that make each litre of water work harder
On its own, water is not always good at wetting fine or hydrophobic dust. Dust-A-Side's HydroPlus is a surface-active agent that lowers water's surface tension, so it wets hydrophobic and respirable dust particles under 10 micron far more readily. It is ratio-fed into the feed water of high pressure mist systems or fog cannons. The HydroWet additive performs much the same role on non-permanent road surfaces carrying high fines, and its effect builds up the more it is used. Both are free of salts and organic chlorides, biodegradable and safe for vegetation.
For protecting stockpiles and hard park areas over the longer haul, the company's AquaTarp synthetic polymer binder sets into a waterproof layer that will not leach once cured, holding dust in check through the dry season and cutting the material that wind erosion carries away.
Designed around the site, then measured
Every Dust-A-Side project opens with a needs analysis. The company runs a detailed site assessment supported by testing in a SANAS-accredited laboratory, complimentary soil and water analysis included, so each solution is shaped around the operation instead of pulled from a shelf. In-house manufacturing and bulk transport back delivery to remote sites, and clients can opt for a full turnkey service or pick individual components, with plant, equipment, skilled personnel, Safety Management Plans and training on offer.
Once a system is in, its performance is followed with tools like DASMetrics and mobile dust monitoring, which supply the real-time data needed to keep a dust management plan running smoothly. Dust-A-Side carries ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certifications and puts health, safety, environment and quality at the heart of what it does, something that counts for operations under pressure to satisfy environmental regulations and steer clear of fines or stoppages.
Operations wanting to take stock of dust at their plant, conveyors or stockpiles ahead of the hot months will find product details and a contact form at https://dustaside.com/.
About Dust-A-Side
Dust-A-Side is a South African born dust control company with a presence that reaches well beyond its borders. It delivers dust management, road management and erosion control for opencast and underground mines, quarries, process plants, construction sites, railways, agriculture, municipal and rural roads, transport yards, dry bulk terminals and tailings facilities. The range takes in bitumen emulsion, lignosulphonate and polymer binders, HydroWet and HydroPlus surfactants, high and low pressure mist systems, fog cannons, DAS monitoring and DASMetrics road performance evaluation tools. The company holds ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certifications and relies on a SANAS-accredited laboratory for its site testing.
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Dust-A-Side
Email: info@dustaside.com
Phone: +27 12 648 8900
Website: https://dustaside.com/