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2021 Industrial and Heavy Equipment Air Filtration Best Practices and Trends

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Air quality has been a trending topic throughout 2020. This focus will continue into 2021 due to the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 and increased interest in health and safety impacts of respirable particulates, viruses, and other microscopic nanoparticles.

The rising financial impact and safety risks of dust

Although small, dust particulates can cause big problems on mine sites. Dust can damage equipment and pose a health risk to workers when it enters heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.

Dust can block HVAC evaporator cores, resulting in expensive repairs and machines being taken offline for extended downtime, impacting a mine’s productivity.

Worse still, dust particulates can have a harmful impact on mineworkers’ health. When operators in machine cabins or control rooms breathe in contaminants too small to see, including coal and silica dust, diesel particulate matter (DPM), or asbestos fibre, this can lead to long-term and life-threatening illnesses such as silicosis or coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP), also known as black lung.

“In industries where particulate matter is prevalent, investment in clean air systems is good for the health of machine operators and for the business,” Sy-Klone vice president of marketing and business development Austin Browne tells Australian Mining.

“Minimizing dust through advanced air filtration and pre-cleaning allows machines to run longer and employees to operate more safely.”

New international mining air quality standard introduced

ISO 23875: Operator enclosures – Air quality control systems and air quality performance testing was approved internationally in November 2020. The new standard adopts critical updates in engineering and performance requirements for operator enclosures on mine sites. ISO 23875 is a lifecycle standard, addressing cabin air control systems from initial design and throughout the machinery’s operating life.

Ten mining countries, including Australia, collaborated in the development of ISO 23875. Various Australian mining, governmental and industrial hygiene related organizations commented on the standard during its development. Sy-Klone International executive vice president Jeff Moredock was the international project lead for ISO 23875.

“This standard will make a huge difference in operator health and safety and how industry stakeholders address this issue around the world,” Moredock says.

ISO 23875 requirements include enhanced filtration efficiency requirements, defined maximum carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, real-time operator cabin monitoring and other key areas of cabin design, maintenance, and testing.

Increased demand for more efficient HEPA filters

COVID-19 has raised awareness of the importance of air quality, deepened understanding of airborne nanoparticles and broadened interest in high-efficiency filtration.

“We are increasingly receiving requests for HEPA-grade cabins, which is a customer reference to a properly-sealed operator cabin with HEPA filtration used in both the fresh and recirculated air systems, consistent with filtration mandates in occupational health and safety regulations, including ISO 23875,” LSM Technologies managing director Peter Woodford says.

“Our team has developed the expertise to engineer, design and service custom installations featuring the Sy-Klone RESPA system with HEPA filtration whilst maintaining air flow levels to ensure cabin pressurization, CO2 ventilation, thermal comfort and maximum protection of the occupants of mobile and fixed enclosed cabins.”

Selecting a HEPA filter can be challenging as many HEPA filters claim 99.7% efficiency at 0.3 micrometres. However, as Browne explains, this is not a classification under any current industry standards.

“HEPA filters are classified as 99.95% efficient at the most penetrating particle size (MPPS) by meeting the requirements of ISO 29463 (ISO 35 H classification) and/or EN1822 (H13 classification),” Browne says.

“All Sy-Klone RadialShield HEPA filters achieve the classification of H13 or ISO 35 H at an MPPS of 0.063 micrometres, meaning, not only are they ISO 23875 compliant, but they are also 99.95% effective at arresting COVID-19 virus-sized particles. So far, this is unmatched in the industry.”

Improved heavy equipment cab monitoring systems and smart cab technology

Improved monitoring of air quality within cabins will be a key trend in 2021, including real-time measurement of cabin pressurization and CO2 levels, which is an aspect of air cabin quality that is not commonly addressed.

High CO2 levels may impact the operator’s ability to think clearly.

“Part of cabin filtration is not just clean air, but it’s also having enough oxygen within the cabin. Too much CO2 can cause drowsiness, endanger the driver and others near the machine, and affect productivity,” Lyons Airconditioning senior commercial manager Ryan Wheeler shares. “We strongly recommend that on every install, cabins have a monitoring system installed.”

In early 2021, Sy-Klone will release the RESPA Advisor, an all-in-one unit that will monitor cabin pressurization and CO2 levels, alerting machine operators when either measure goes outside of permissible limits.

Best practices for choosing a cab air quality system

With the focus on new air quality standards and increased interest in HEPA filtration, buyers will demand more from cabin air quality systems.

To ensure selection of a cabin air quality system that works as advertised to protect operators’ air quality, purchasers should choose a system that uses filters classified for human respiration. Some air quality systems are built on traditional pressurizer technology that uses modified engine filter housings, which lack filters suitable for respiration. The Sy-Klone RESPA system with RadialShield filters are explicitly engineered to improve air quality for human respiration.

RESPA’s fresh-air unit ensures continuous delivery of clean, fresh air inside the operator cabin and integrates a powered pre-cleaner, pressurizer, and high-efficiency filter into a single unit. RESPA’s precleaning technology ejects over 90% of the largest debris before air reaches the filter, leaving only the smallest particles to be addressed by the filters. Sy-Klone’s patented, self-cleaning filter and filter housing continuously shed dust captured from the filter, which is then ejected out of the system, resulting in longer filter life.

RESPA’s recirculation unit provides the same high-efficiency filtration level for recirculated air.

Many competing systems do not feature these self-cleaning capabilities, allowing dust to build up on the filter and increasing restriction on the system, resulting in decreased performance and shorter filter life.

Purchasing a cabin air quality system is an investment in health and safety for employees and provides tangible benefits through reduced fleet maintenance costs. Prepare for these 2021 air quality trends to deliver beneficial financial and safety results.

This article originally appeared in the December 2020 / January 2021 edition of Australian Mining.

https://www.sy-klone.com/blog/2021/01/19/2021-industrial-and-heavy-equipment-cabin-air-quality-trends/

Lyons Leads the Way in ISO Cabin Filtration Standards

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Airborne dust particles can cause short term impact on mining productivity and long-term impacts on workers’ health. Safe to Work speaks to Lyons Airconditioning Services about how it combines its renowned Australian knowledge with Sy-Klone International’s cab air quality systems and air filtration products to lead the way in dust control and help mining companies meet ISO 23875, the soon to be published mining industry specific air quality standard.

Sy-Klone and Lyons Airconditioning Services are partnering to give companies like Rio Tinto, Fortescue Metals Group and Macmahon Holdings direction and consultation on dust control.

Perth-based Lyons is ensuring that dust control measures used across Australian mines meet International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) standards, ensuring safety for workers. One such standard is ISO 23875 “Operator enclosures – Air quality control systems and air quality performance testing,” which is expected to be published in Q1 2021. Lyons is actively working with mining companies across Australia to help address the performance requirements outlined in the standard, in part by installing Sy-Klone’s ISO 23875 compliant RESPA® cab air quality system.

Dust particles and airborne contaminants found in mining environments, such as coal, silica and asbestos dust, as well as odours, can filter into the cabin and be breathed in by workers.

They can cause long-term health conditions like coal mine dust lung disease, silicosis, mixed dust pneumoconiosis, dust-related diffuse fibrosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

With the introduction of new Industrial laws across Australia, and new international standards, such as ISO 23875, the onus is more than ever on mining companies to take care of their employees’ health and wellbeing.

 

Lyons Airconditioning Services is guarding mine workers from these health risks, distributing Sy-Klone’s range of RESPA pressurizer, precleaner and filtration system; high efficiency RadialSHIELD® filters; and cabin pressure monitor throughout the mining and construction industry to block out nanoparticles and other harmful contaminants, keeping them out of vehicles and safeguarding workers.

As Lyons general manager Emmanuel Lardis explains, the companies are united by their common goal to protect workers and set the benchmark for cabin filtration safety.

“With our ability to maintain dust concentration levels well below required limits we are protecting the operator’s lung health and giving them a chance to live a long productive life. By keeping contaminants and dangerous dust particles outside of the machine’s cab, Lyons is keeping the operator safe and making sure they get home for that day and the next 20 to 30 years down the track,” Lardis tells Safe to Work.

“Sy-Klone’s and Lyons’ combined team of experts are able to formulate solutions to meet the latest international standards, including the new mining air quality standard, ISO 23875.”

ISO 23875 covers safety in mining, with an emphasis on air quality control and how to implement effective air quality control systems, dilution of carbon dioxide (CO2) and routine testing of air throughout the cab. “ISO 23875 establishes a consistent set of operator enclosure air quality control requirements for mining companies across the globe. Lyons has the in-depth knowledge of the Australian mining industry, the mechanical expertise, and the experience installing Sy-Klone’s air filtration products, to help mining customers solve the most complex air filtration challenges; including meeting the requirements of ISO 23875,” said Austin Browne, Vice President Marketing for Sy-Klone International.

Lyons distributes Sy-Klone RadialSHIELD filters including HEPA (ISO 35 H) and MERV 16 options, both of which use high-tech filtration media, highly effective in removing biological nanoparticles such as COVID-19, silica, asbestos, and other dangerous particles from the air. Lyons not only distributes the Sy-Klone products, but also provides Australian mining clients with personalised feedback and instruction regarding their dust control measures.

“Lyons provides direction and expertise through our vast experience of more than 35 years in the mining industry,” Lardis says.

“In association with our partners, like Sy-Klone, industry associations and bodies that work in health and safety for cabin filtration, we can provide solutions that are fit for purpose for a particular site or the contaminant they are having issues with.”

Lyons was eager to partner with Sy-Klone for its global reputation and the versatility of its range, with one air filtration system having the ability to address multiple challenges and sites across a mining company’s portfolio including odour, gas and particulate filtration

Another attraction of the Sy-Klone range Lyons highlights is the superior ability to extend filter life to meet the maintenance schedule for the mining equipment.

“The reason we are moving towards the Sy-Klone range is that one system will suit multiple sites,” Lardis says.

“You install the system once and depending on what contaminant you are trying to overcome, is  the type of filter you use for that system. The system doesn’t necessarily change but the filter will. The Sy-Klone filtration products include particulate, gas, and odour options, which can be customised depending on site requirements.

“The Sy-Klone range filter is designed to last until the scheduled maintenance every 500 hours, which matches most vehicles’ maintenance service intervals. If your filter can last until your next service, you don’t need to shut down the machine. Every hour a machine is out of work, can cost hundreds of thousands in lost productivity.”

At the helm of Lyons is its team of experts, who often work remotely on site with mining companies, offering their advice on tackling contaminants that are known issues in the local area.

Lyons Senior Commercial Manager Ryan Wheeler, who along with the company’s senior technicians, is one of the experts that visits client sites to complete audits on equipment and ensure they are complying to implementation and industry standards.

“Lyons works closely with clients to advise them on overcoming issues they are having on site, so we can provide a solution to protect operators inside the cabins,” Wheeler tells Safe to Work.

Lyons Indigenous New Look

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Lyons has established a reputation throughout WA as the experts in Heavy and Light Vehicle in air conditioning and filtration. They are embedded in the mining, transport and construction industries and play a part in environmental sustainability and respect for the traditional landowners of Australia. Looking to expand their indigenous workforce and supporting Aboriginal artists by showcasing their stories, history and amazing talents.

The new Lyons mobile service vehicles have been imprinted with amazing artwork from our local and proud  indigenous artist Tamara Hayden.

The artwork tells a story about Derbal Yerrigan (Swan River) and goes like this:

“The rivers of Perth are woven into the dreaming stories of our local aboriginal people, the Noongar. For us the Swan River is known as the Derbal Yerrigan. Derbal Yerrigan describes the Swan River and some elders have said that’s it’s the place of fresh water turtle, because the fresh water turtle was very important to us for medicine. However, the words Derbal Yerrigan do not literally translate as Swan River. The literal translation for Derbal Yerrigan is Narlak (swan) Beeliar (river). Derbal Yerrigan is understood to refer to fresh water or brackish water turtle dreaming along the river.

In traditional times, our Noongar fishermen would crush shellfish into a pulp and sprinkle it into the water to attract fish. The men would wait in the water and spear any fish that were drawn in. In autumn when smaller fish would approach the shores, our people would surround them keeping them in the shallow until the tide dropped, at which point they were easily speared. If the water was too deep and fish were not stranded the woman and children would make a simple fish pen, by pushing gathered bushes into the sand. The fish could then be contained and easily speared.

In autumn and early winter, salmon were in abundance and many would be speared as the dolphins chased them into the shallow waters. Our people did not use nets, rather they wove bushes and sticks into a wicker fence. Our people would also light camp fires on the beaches, 

where the shallow waters and white sand would make it possible to see the fish still in the water, and easier to catch. This is how cobbler was speared in the Derbal Yerrigan.

The Swan and Canning rivers also holds great significance to our Noongar people as being created and sacred to the rainbow serpent the Wagyl, a Dreamtime spirit taking the form of a giant snake.

It began when the Wagyl created what we now call the Swan River (Derbal Yerrigan). For perhaps 40,000 years, aboriginal tales of the snaking waterway and surrounds have been told, as the women walked the southern shore teaching their children all they needed to know to live of the land, before they gathered at Point Walter, which they called Djoondalup.

The Northern shoreline was where the boys were taken to go through law – the rites of passage to manhood. Then they would cross the river to Point Walter, coming back as men. Elders taught our Noongar people that the Wagyl created creeks, waterholes, lakes and valleys on its journey to the ocean. As the Wagyl slithered over the land, his track shaped the sand dunes, his body scoured out the course of rivers, where he occasionally stopped for a rest, he created bays and lakes. Piles of rocks are said to be his droppings, and such sites are considered sacred. As he moved, his scales scraped off and became the forests and woodland regions.

Our Noongar people were appointed as the guardians of the land by the Wagyl. He said our spirits are in the trees and the hills and the rocks and the animals. When your born you come from the land and when you die your spirit goes back to the land. The spirit ancestors from the dreaming gave us this law”

 

Filtration for Coal mining cabin and engine

Sy-Klone Engine & Air Filtration for Coal Mines

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Filtration for Coal mining cabin and engineSy-Klone filtration is used in various mining operations throughout the world. In Colombia South America, Sy-Klone is the preferred automotive cabin and engine filtration systems, for some of the largest coal mines in the country. Cerrejon and Drummond Coal are two worth mentioning. Cerrejon is the largest open pit coal mine in the world and likely the longest in continuous operation.

The D11R fleet at Drummond was the largest fleet of D11’s in the world, with around 113 machines in operation. They are equipped with Sy-Klone Optimax and RESPA CF/CFX. Most of the D11 fleet worked the coal pile while it was continuously burning as the coal piles spontaneously combust and while the crew regularly fight to put out the fires. All of Sy-Klones case studies on electrical cabinets, D11R OPTIMAX and RESPA studies are on machines in active coal mine operations, as they have done more work in coal mines than any other mining Coal mining filtration for cabin and enginetype.

Sy-Klone are working right now on a Liebherr 9400 in New Mexico at a North American Coal Company on installing the OPTIMAX and RESPA systems. This machine is working a coal seam that is on fire and producing fly ash overburden. The machine and operator have suffered significantly from the fly ash which has produced 50-hour engine filter changes and daily cab filter changes.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Office of Acquisition Services (OAS) on behalf of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and the Pittsburgh Mining Research Division (PMRD) intend to award a contract to Sy-Klone International (Sy-Klone) to develop a “Smart-Cab” filtration system and install it on an active piece of equipment to be field tested.

Optimax engine filtration

Sy-Klone has been utilizing NIOSH evidence-based research for nearly 17 years, holds 60 patents for filtration system technology and has 35,000 systems installed globally which enables them to continually research and develop new technologies in mobile equipment filtration. Notice of Intent Smart Cab Filtration System demonstrates the value of having Sy-Klone on-site as a preferred mobile vehicle filtration system.

Sy-Klone are actively engaged in projects with NIOSH to resolve specific coal mining issues around ultra-fine particles. They have developed technology and solutions that other filtration brands cannot rival.  There are many more reasons why Sy-Klone should be the filtration of choice in the Coal Mining industry as they are in various other mining operations. In Australia companies like Rio Tinto, FMG, Citic Sy-Klone Hepa filtration RESPA Merv 16Pacific, Glencore and many more depend on Sy-Klone to keep their operators safe and their equipment operational.

There are various case studies for Sy-Klone Kits for Mining Machines that tell you what the application are and where they are best suited. For more information contact the experts at Lyons Air-conditioning Services on (08) 9259 7777 or email, enquiries@lyons.com.au.

Pressurisers and filtration save lives

Are you at Risk from Airborne Contaminants?

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Pressurisers and filtration save lives

Dust contaminants in mining & construction

Airborne contaminants can be inhaled as particles suspended in the air. Many dusts associated with mining and construction contain substances that have little health effect when reasonably well controlled. Other dust particles can contain hazardous materials and can have life changing effects.

One of the most common dusts encountered on mine sites is crystalline silica, which is a mineral found in many natural and construction materials. The particles are so small that they stay airborne long after larger particles have settled to the ground and are easily inhaled deep into the lungs.

Dust protection and suppression saves lives

Dust can contain harmful contaminants

Several varieties of asbestiform minerals may be encountered during exploration activities for iron ore, base metals, gold and subsequent mining. High-energy processes such as cutting, sawing, grinding, drilling, polishing, scabbling and crushing can create unacceptable dust exposures if not controlled.

Some metals that are mined or present as processing reagents are potentially toxic if inhaled or ingested, such as lead, arsenic and mercury. Hazardous gases and mists such as sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, hydrogen cyanide and ammonia can also be generated in process plants and refineries. Fibrous minerals such as crocidolite, chrysotile and grunerite can be encountered during exploration and mining.

Diesel engines can emit exhaust gases. The potential short- and long-term health effects from exposure to diesel emissions are well documented.

Legionella pneumophila is a bacterial organism found in cooling towers, air conditioners and other water systems. In rare cases, the inhalation of contaminated aerosols may cause Legionnaires’ disease, which is a form of pneumonia and can be fatal.

Welding and cutting operations are common on mine sites and generate metal and other fumes.

Abrasive blasting used in mining and manufacturing to clean equipment can generate considerable dust. Open-air abrasive blasting should be done away from working areas with appropriate dust control measures.

Exposure standards

Atmospheric contaminants levels in the mines, construction and workplace must be maintained below the exposure standards. Where no specific exposure standard has been assigned and the substance is both of inherently low toxicity and free from toxic impurities, exposure to dusts should be maintained below 10 mg/m3, measured as inhalable dust (8 hour time weight average – TWA).

Managing airborne contaminants

Dust suppression solutions

How to manage airborne contaminants

Control measures include:

  • Wet downs areas that generate dust
  • Wear suitable personal protective equipment (PPE) with a clean air supply
  • Fit drills with a water injection or dust extraction system or both
  • Use dust extraction systems and position the dust discharge ducting to not blow back on the operators or others working in the vicinity

    Protect occupant by creating positive pressure in equipment cabins

    Cabin Filtration and Pressuriser

  • Control dust at the source by using a dust suppression system
  • Operating equipment with a well-sealed air-conditioned cabin
  • Fit equipment cabins with suitable filtration systems to maintain positive air pressure and clean airflow
  • Regularly replace filters in filtration devices and systems to prevent dust build-up
  • Prevent dust ingress and test regularly with smoke candles or air detection systems

For the best advice in air conditioning and filtration with over 35 years’ experience in servicing industries throughout Australia and the world, there is no one you can trust like Lyons.

Call us now on (08) 9259 7777 or email enquiries@lyons.com.au and speak to one of our experts to make sure you keep safe all year round.

 

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