Kinder Australia’s clever engineering is helping save quarries from excess dust and spillage.
When dust escapes from a plant at a quarry site, it can create all kinds of headaches.
Not only does it pose a danger to workers and the nearby environment, but it can also add significant maintenance costs.
This is doubly so with spillage, as material is wasted and piles up on site. This can lead to health and safety issues, like tripping hazards, and must be cleaned up.
Quarry workers are busy people, so having them spend time on cleanup duty instead of improving production leads to less money in the long run.
This was the problem facing a quarry in Central Queensland. The company, which specialises in producing material for fire prevention applications in underground coal mines, had an issue in its screening process.
No wear liner was used inside the chute, and 150mm rubber strips served as the chute’s only form of sealing. This resulted in unpleasant, disruptive, and costly material spillage. One full-time permanent maintenance staff member was recruited to shovel the spillage away.
Staff at the site knew something needed to be done and reached out to Kinder Australia for a solution.
Joshua Kay, a field applications engineer at Kinder, said the company does not take a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, its team prefers to visit the site and find the issue’s root cause.
“Kinder is a solutions-based engineering business. We don’t want to just offer a product guide; we are here to help solve problems,” he told Quarry.
“Whenever a customer has an issue, one of our field application engineers will inspect the site and speak to the staff about the issues they are facing. If we can offer solutions while in the field, we will, but usually, we will work with our internal engineering team to find the best tool for the job.”
The solution
Kinder has developed a specific fix to tackle dust emissions, made up of several products working in tandem – the Essential Air Seal dust containment solution.
The solution, made up of the AirScrape, TailScrape, K-Sure belt support system and K-Containment seal, provides optimal skirting and sealing. At the centre of this system is DustScrape, which uses a filter box to trap dust while allowing clean air to circulate.
“The DustScrape box contains cloth-like filter material that captures dust particles while ensuring proper airflow,” Kay said.
The system protects workers and enhances operational efficiency by suppressing dust where it forms. However, to further reduce emissions the company combines it with AirScrape, a unique skirting system.
“The AirScrape sits off the belt and creates a Venturi effect, sucking air into the impact zone and keeping dust contained,” he said.
The contact-free system acts as a side seal, suspended over the conveyor belt. With its unique diagonal arrangement of hardened lamellae, air is led from the outside into the middle of the belt, creating powerful air suction.
The material movement together with the moving belt support increases the suction effect enabling fine dust particles to remain in the conveyor section.
“The AirScrape is maintenance-free and doesn’t touch the conveyor belt, meaning there’s no wear and tear on the belt itself. Companies save money on reduced maintenance and longer belt life,” Kay said.
Kinder also provides TailScrape, which fully integrates with AirScrape to deliver outstanding sealing at the rear area, resulting in dust and material spillage reductions, and significant cost savings and resources.
TailScrape proprietary blade structure on the underside ensures a negative pressure environment within the conveying area. This prevents dust and other material spillage from escaping through the millimetre-thick gap.
While Kinder’s solutions can be used independently, the greatest benefit comes from using them together.
“The perfect solution for dust mitigation involves using the AirScrape, TailScrape, and DustScrape in tandem,” Kay said.
This combination ensures that dust is handled within the impact zone and doesn’t escape into the environment.”
Eliminating dust in quarries
Historically, the central Queensland quarry had used a K-Sure belt support system for more than a decade.
Because the site was familiar with the performance and credibility of Kinder’s equipment, it saw fit to install the entire range of dust containment solutions.
Following a comprehensive site inspection at the quarry, Kinder’s area field technical representative identified a 4m drop from the chute to the transfer point, followed by thorough screening at 15mm, 5mm and then 4mm intervals.
They also noted insufficient belt support at the critical impact zone, and further down, belt sagging between the rollers was evident.
Seeing the benefits of the combined system, the site chose to install AirScrape, DustScrape, TailScrape, K-Sure belt support system, and Containment seals.
After installing Kinder’s dust containment system, the site reported maintenance time and resources devoted to removing ten tonnes of spillage were no longer required. That meant labour and product loss reduction targets could soon be achieved.
The transfer point that had been previously causing so much trouble for the quarry had been optimised thanks to the skirting and sealing solution.
As a result, the plant sees ongoing maintenance-free operation. The maintenance team is also very confident the plant will realise significant cost savings now and well into the future.
Kay said that reducing downtime and maintenance is vital for quarries.
“By reducing change-outs, less downtime is needed. Nobody wants to be changing out a belt every shutdown,” he said.
“Time is money, so when you’re spending time on things like maintenance, you’re not spending it on things that could be making more profit.” •
For more information, visit kinder.com.au
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