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Food & Beverage
The handling and storage of combustible organic ingredients like flour or sugar, and flammable products like ethanol, generate dangerously high levels of static electricity.
According to a report published by the IChemE. 36% of industrial fires occur in bakeries. As more attention is paid to potential dust cloud explosion hazards and flammable hazards by government regulators, (ATEX & OSHA) the food and beverage industry is increasingly turning its attention to managing the risks associated with static electricity in potentially flammable and explosive atmospheres.
Customer Testimonials
Newson Gale is truly a professional organisation in helping us mitigate static ignition potentials at our site and providing cost-sensitive solutions. I would highly recommend Newson Gale in this regard. Keep up the good work!
Todd Tereska, CSP, CHMM, Sr. Safety & Industrial Hygiene Compliance Advisor
DSM Nutritional Products, NJ, USA
Static Hazards
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Road tankers are capable of storing large amounts of electrostatic charges that result from the transfer of large volumes of charged liquids and powders. Ungrounded road tankers can discharge incendive static sparks above 1000mJ of energy into potentially flammable and combustible atmospheres if the container body is not correctly grounded. |
| Vacuum trucks and tank trucks often have to transfer combustible material without the presence of an installed static ground monitoring system. The Earth-Rite MGV is a truck mounted system that can verify that objects it is connected to (e.g. ground rods, pipes running into ground) will function as a reliable static earth ground for the truck. | |
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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 grounding equipment can be specified to monitor all potentially isolated points in the hazardous area. |
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Filling IBCs and large containers with flammable liquids has the potential to generate a serious fire hazard if the IBC is not correctly grounded. Wherever possible output contacts should be used to stop filling should the IBC lose its ground connection thereby preventing the rapid accumulation of static charges on the IBC. |
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Powder conveying and filling generates high levels of electrostatic charge on 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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For low volume liquid transfers it is important to fully bond or ground small drums and cans to ensure any charge generated is quickly dissipated as static sparks can readily ignite the liquid being handled. |
