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Pharmaceutical
The pharmaceutical industry has a long history of worker safety and fire prevention, and has made signicant strides in eliminating static hazards within dangerous process environments.
Milling and grinding operations, dust collection, container filling and general movement of combustible powders and solvents are significant sources of static electricity. After mechanical spark ignitions, uncontrolled discharges of static electricity are the highest reported source of ignition in combustible dust cloud explosions.
Customer Testimonials
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The Earth Rite Multipoint monitoring system is an ideal way to ensure that our equipment is earthed and bonded prior to processing potentially combustible powders. Newson-Gale is ATEX certified, which enables us to use the Eart Rite Multipoint system in Ex-zoned static hazardous areas. |
The "Earthing and Bonding Applications - Controlling Static Electricity in Hazardous Areas" document by Newson Gale is a very good, easy to read document. It provides practical advice and has great illustrations. It contains a lot of good background information and references various regulations throughout. The fact it includes comparisons between European (Cenelec), Americal (NEC) and International (IEC) Hazardous Area Classification and is available in many languages makes it an excellent reference document. |
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Static Hazards
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Road tankers are capable of storing large amounts of static electricity that results from the transfer of large volumes of charged liquids and powders. Unearthed road tankers can discharge incendive static sparks above 1000mJ of energy into potentially flammable and combustible atmospheres if the container body is not correctly earthed. |
| Vacuum tankers and road tankers often have to transfer combustible material without the presence of an installed static earth monitoring system. The Earth-Rite MGV is a tanker mounted system that can verify that objects it is connected to (e.g. earth rods, pipes running into ground) will function as a reliable static earth for the tanker. | |
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Pipes, valves, blowers, hoppers and other components engaged in powder processing can be isolated from each other either due to vibration effects, the insulating properties of parts like gaskets or through normal wear and tear. To manage the uncertainty of knowing whether or not components can become isolated during processing operations, dedicated earthing equipment can be specified to monitor all potentially isolated points in the hazardous area. |
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Powder conveying and filling generates high levels of static electricity in FIBC bags. It is essential that Type C FIBC bags regularly used in potentially combustible or flammable atmospheres are capable of dissipating electrostatic charges to ensure the powder or FIBC bag is not capable of releasing high energy static sparks or propagating brush discharges into the local atmosphere. |
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The manual filling of portable drums and vessels can result in incendive static spark discharges between drums or personnel if the drum or vessel is not correctly earthed. To ensure the operator knows when it is safe to transfer product, dedicated earthing clamps containing hi-visibility flashing LEDs should be deployed to indicate when the drum or vessel is connected to a verified earth point. |
