Dust generation during shiploading: reducing emissions from ship holds

The introduction of more stringent environmental and occupational health and safety regulations have instigated efforts to reduce the amount of dust generated during loading of ships with dusty bulk materials. The work presented in this paper demonstrates that to reduce dust emissions during ship loading of dry bulk materials, the material stream exiting the loading chute should be concentrated and at high velocity. This encapsulates the majority of the dust within the stream and buries it within the pile. The chutes that have been designed to achieve this result also keeps the impact angle of the bulk material with the chute low, reducing particle degradation and therefore minimising additional dust generation. Further reductions in dust emissions are possible with the use of a self adjusting flap above the material stream which prevents dust laden air from exiting the spoon chute