Food Industry Applications, Process, Fugitive Dust Monitoring & Environmental

Dust and particulate matter are problematic in nearly all food processing plants, making particulate monitoring a critical maintenance and process control operation. Many food dusts are combustible and those operations of generating or handling food dusts require special efforts to minimize dust emissions in these areas. Additionally, the possibility of breakage and build up require early detection to flow/no flow monitoring and particle velocity issues need to be appropriately monitored to ensure optimal process control and minimized product loss.

Many food processing plants also need to be wary of filter failures or baghouse leaks, which may require costly shutdowns and product loss. All of these maintenance and process challenges can be avoided with proper monitoring using bag leak detectors.

Dust Collector Maintenance and Monitoring

Using an Auburn Systems triboelectric particulate monitor offers early warning of impending filter failures – allowing for maintenance to schedule shutdowns when it is most efficient for their plants. Triboelectric monitoring can eliminate the guess work that is associated with isolating compartments or performing dye tests and can even extend the life of filters beyond the manufacturer’s recommendations. This results in fewer preventative maintenance shutdowns and ultimately maintenance cost savings!

Popular Dust Monitoring Applications:

Bin Vents on Silos
Fluid Bed Dryers
Cyclone Overflow
Recirculating Dust Collector Emissions
Baghouses and Cartridge Filters

Process Improvement

For the food industry, the conveying or transporting of dry particulate requires a reliable means to verifying flow/no flow (blockages) as well as velocity. While Auburn has traditionally used a probe inserted into the pipe or duct, many of our food processing applications now use ring sensors. While they have the same reliability as a probe, these are non-intrusive sensors that maintain the integrity of the process equipment without any fear of introducing foreign substances into the food production process.

Loss-of-flow detectors (closely related to dust emission bag rupture detectors) can be used for a wide variety of flow applications – including:

Monitoring for blockages or no-flow detection in pneumatic conveying/material handling systems
Monitoring screw feeders or material injection
Monitoring the velocity of particles to reduce product breakage for food manufacturers

Ambient/Fugitive Dust Monitoring

Since many food dusts are combustible, the operations generating and handling those dusts can require special efforts to minimize dust emissions. Using an Auburn Systems Ambient Fugitive Dust Sensor (AFDS) allows for early detection of increased levels of ambient or fugitive dust.

Using the Venturi Effect, the AFDS is able to detect unexpected rises in ambient dust levels throughout the workplace and relay the information to the plant’s current data management system for monitoring and recording. Some of the areas food processing plants are using AFDS are:

Silos
Silo Penthouses
Bulk Packaging Areas
Loading/Unloading
Dry Mixing/Sifter Rooms
Filling/Product Transferring
Hazardous and Combustible Dust Monitoring