BossTek supplies Port of Coeymans with dust management solution
Published by Claire Cuddihy,
Assistant Editor
Dry Bulk,
Leading dust control solutions company BossTek has assisted the Port of Coeymans – which is located 10 miles south of New York along the Hudson River – control fugitive particle emissions at the dock and in the industrial park using atomised mist technology.
The port has begun utilising two DustBoss® DB-60™ atomised mist cannons from BossTek® for dust suppression in a variety of activities and applications. One machine is mobile, used to control particle emissions during the unloading and storage of bulk materials. The other is tower-mounted to suppress particulates at the metal scrap yard. This provides operators the versatility to address surface suppression and airborne control at different areas of the port, resulting in a drastic reduction in fugitive dust.
About 40 - 50 vessels per year arrive from Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Spain, delivering nearly 33 000 per week of clinker, a dry chalky substance used as a binder in cement products. When the ship arrives, large clamshell shovels controlled by tower cranes unload the material from the ship’s cargo hold, over the ship’s deck – from 25 (7.5 m) to as high as 120 ft (to 36.5 m) in the air – to a 20 ft tall (6 m) hopper, which discharges into a 36 t haul truck. The truck drives the material the short distance to the adjacent industrial park, where it is stored for further transport.
Vice President of Sales and Business Development at the port, Stephen Kelly, explained: “The most dust was produced when the substance was dropped into the hopper, and although it has a bag house attached, a percentage would still escape.”
“We realised that we also needed dust suppression for scrap metal storage and other operations in the industrial park. Our goal was to improve air quality for the safety of our employees and the surrounding community.”
The 300 ft (91.4 m) wide dock receives vessels of up to 750 ft (228.6 m) in length overall (LOA). With no beam restrictions, it accepts ships with a draft (depth) of 31 ft (9.4 m). In addition, a 300 ft (91.4m) by 60 ft (18.3 m) inlet channel with a 15 ft (4.5 m) draft allows loading/unloading from both sides.
The Port of Coeymans also limits fugitive dust emissions by other means such as limiting the distance the dust-emitting cargo travels from the ship’s hold to the dock. This is achieved by using a clamshell shovel suspended from a crane to slowly unload the material into a tall portable hopper with a baghouse dust collection system.
To further mitigate dust, crane operators reduce the amount of material collected by the shovel. Although this extends the unloading time, it curbs the amount of material escaping from the top or sides of the shovel and thus further limits dust emissions.
Another area that required dust suppression was in the industrial park. Located approximately 700 ft (213 m) inland from the Hudson River with no natural wind barrier, the surface is a combination of concrete, packed earth and gravel. Scrap metal from various sources (demolition projects, old cars, dismantled ships, etc.) is transferred from barges and deposited into storage piles. During windy conditions, the unprocessed metal can emit dust both during offloading from vessels and loading onto ground transport.
The industrial park also stores mounds of various raw commodities. These well-organised piles, stretching as high as 20 ft (6 m), are exposed to outdoor conditions and can emit dust in moderate winds, during offloading by haulers, disruption by front loaders and loading into trains or trucks. Additionally, this heavy ground equipment can kick up its own dust during normal operations.Kelly contacted BossTek , manufacturer of the DustBoss series of industrial atomised mist cannons and opted to rent two of the mid-sized DB-60 units to test them out. Mounted on a heavy-duty wheeled carriage with a pintle hitch, the DB-60 has a specially designed barrel with a powerful fan on the back end and a circular manifold with 30 atomising spray nozzles on the front. The fan forces air through the cannon and past the manifold,nlaunching millions of tiny atomised mist droplets 50 to 200 microns in size.
By introducing droplets roughly the same size as the dust particles, the droplets are able to travel with the particles, collide with them and drag them to the ground before they drift onto the dock area or across the site line.
A 25 horsepower fan producing 30 000 CFM (849.50 CMM) of air flow propels the engineered mist in a 200 ft (60 m) long cone that reaches high over the deck of the ship. This type of coverage offers simultaneous surface suppression to material in the cargo hold and airborne suppression through the shovel’s path from the hold to the hopper.
The DB-60 units are easily moved on their wheeled carriage by a pickup truck or fork lift from the port to the industrial park. There, operators can cover more than 125 000 ft2 (11 613 m2) of the storage and traffic area using the 359° degree oscillation.
There are some clear benefits over the use of hoses, which are required to be manned and can use up to 100 gpm (378 lpm). The DB-60 uses far less water (only 26.7 gpm /101.1 lpm), delivering a much larger coverage area and requiring no labor for ongoing operation. Workers at the port simply place it in the desired location, point it in the right direction, hook up the hose and power, turn it on and walk away.
Result
Operators have reported that air quality at the port has significantly improved during the unloading of clinker and other dusty materials, and that fugitive dust emissions have not been seen leaving the site since adding the units to the facility’s dust management plan.
“We are very happy with how the DustBoss controls the dust, how heavy-duty it is and how it works every time we turn it on,” Kelly concluded.
“BossTek has been very responsive and great to work with. I would recommend their atomised mist machines to any of my colleagues.”
Read the article online at: https://www.drybulkmagazine.com/ports-terminals/07082018/bosstek-supplies-port-of-coeymans-with-dust-management-solution/
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