Health and safety is critical where industrial processes expose employees to dust, powders, smoke or fumes.

Welding fume is clearly recognised as a contributor of respiratory issues and long-term lung disease.
The good news is that welding fume can be easily captured and removed from the workplace to protect the operators breathing zone and prevent fume spreading throughout the working environment.

“The most successful method of extracting any dust or fume is at the point of source,” comments Mr Cameron Prestidge from Egmont Air. “It sounds simple, but the challenge is a design that achieves this without interfering or restricting the process of work in operation.”

It is important that the correct airflows and capture designs are specified. In this way the toxic or nuisance pollutants are removed to protect the operators without creating nuisance draughts that cause porosity and poor weld quality.

Capturing toxic particles ‘at source’ also offers other benefits in terms of workshop cleanliness, clean-air compliance and employee well-being, to create a workplace that provides a more productive environment.

Egmont Air offers many devices such as articulating arms, fume cupboards, down-draught benches, air cleaners, centralised vacuum systems, specialised hoods and other proprietary equipment so that a solution can be specified for each individual application.

A huge range of filtration and dust collectors allows the correct type of dust collector to be matched for each pollutant. High-efficiency filtration provides clean-air discharge to exceed environmental regulations, in some cases allowing purified air to be returned to the working environment.

Automatic cleaning by a reverse-pulse of compressed air maintains the filters in optimum working condition and reduces the level of maintenance and monitoring required, compared to other types of cleaning.

A range of small and large dust collectors are available off-the-shelf to suit single machine extraction for individual saws and grinders etc, or large multiple-station systems are available that can be connected to a centralised ducting network for plasma cutting, welding, batch mixing, screening and other similar processes.

For more information, free catalogue and on-site evaluation, contact Egmont Air on 0800 781 200 or www.egmontair.co.nz