Brent Nelson- Director of Product Development, Industrial Aftermarket and Services, Donaldson Company, Inc.
Pharma manufacturing raises dust in many steps—in the handling of bulk materials, to milling, granulating, tableting, encapsulating, coating, and even packaging. And yet, if you work in maintenance, purchasing, or environmental health and safety, you probably don’t have a lot of extra time to think about your facility’s dust collection system. You just want to know that it is doing its job so you can focus on yours. That’s where remote or connected monitoring can make your job easier.
Accessing Performance Information
Until recently, monitoring a dust collection system meant manually reading instrument panels, then recording and interpreting the data — time-consuming tasks that may not provide all the information you need to make smart decisions.
Now, connected monitoring services can handle the work, putting accurate, real-time information at your fingertips to help optimize collector efficiency, reduce unplanned downtime, and simplify compliance documentation.
Data recorded manually can only reflect a point in time, but connected monitoring is continuous, letting you see trends, and spotting deviations.
Maintenance, Purchasing, and Environmental Health Safety
In addition to helping ensure that your dust collection system is operating properly, remote monitoring can indicate when filters need replacing so you can get maximum life and performance from your filters.
Key Dust Collector Metrics
So, what kind of information can be monitored and collected remotely, and how can that make your job easier? Let’s break it down into five critical areas:
1. Differential Pressure – Are your filters working properly?
A filter should be replaced when it’s packed with dust and can no longer be pulsed off by a self-cleaning mechanism. When the Differential Pressure (dP) — the drop in pressure as air passes through the filter — exceeds recommended levels, the filter is likely expired. Remote monitoring delivers early alerts about potential filter issues. For example, a sudden spike can mean a plugged airline or a failed cleaning mechanism. Conversely, a rapid drop can mean a ruptured or damaged filter.
These alerts give you time to anticipate filter changes since you can see when filters are approaching maximum life, allowing you to plan filter changes around scheduled downtime. 2.
2. Particulate Concentration – Are you exceeding emissions or exposure limits?
Many industries have regulations for hazardous dust and fumes, so it’s important to have your air quality tested, establish a baseline concentration, and track particulate levels to remain within targets. A small filter leak can go unnoticed and cause dust to exceed targeted levels.
Remote monitoring provides an alert to prompt immediate attention BEFORE exposure limits are breached. In addition, collecting accurate compliance data between tests automates the process of compliance data and air quality tracking, which can limit the number of expensive manual stack tests required by monitoring particulate trends in real-time.
3. Compressed Air Pressure – Is your filter-cleaning mechanism working?
Most dust collectors have a self-cleaning mechanism that uses compressed air to pulse dust from the filters. If this mechanism is not working, dust can lodge in the filters, causing them to expire prematurely.
With remote monitoring, you get alerts when air pressure weakens, so that your maintenance team can rebalance the system to restore normal cleaning. Timely rebalancing extends filter life, resulting in significant savings on parts, labor, and unplanned downtime.
4. Relative Airflow – Are you pulling enough — or too much — air?
Insufficient airflow, the velocity of air moving through hoods and ducts into the collector, can leave nuisance dust in breathing zones, while too much airflow can draw in valuable process materials — or potential ignition sources.
Remote monitoring offers you insight into system issues. For example, low-trending airflow could mean a malfunctioning fan or a ductwork design issue, while excessive velocity could result in the loss of process materials and related revenue.
Combined with dP, airflow data helps confirm when filters are nearing expiration allowing you to make cost-effective filter replacements. Replacing them when warranted, rather than at set intervals, helps maximize filter life and reduce costs.
5. Hopper Obstruction – Are you risking dust back-up?
In dust collectors with a hopper and conveying system that handles agglomerative powders, humidity can condense the material and cause it to plug into the equipment.
Filtration stops and heavy dust can quickly back up into the facility’s air.
Remote monitoring enables early plugging detection using a hopper sensor that triggers an alert when the material begins to congeal so crews can address the obstruction before it stops filtration. Preventing a full-blown obstruction can help reduce the potential for employee exposure, unplanned downtime, and labor costs associated with cleaning the collector and plant.
Supporting Efficient Maintenance and Operation
Having the operational status of all your dust collectors available from a single web-based dashboard means that potential issues are identified before they create the need for larger, more time-intensive corrective action.
Reducing Unplanned Downtime
Key parameters on the collector are monitored, enabling users to proactively troubleshoot and identify maintenance needs. In addition, alerts are sent when pre-set thresholds are breached, or your dust collector is operating outside the pre-set parameters.
Managing and Tracking Regulatory Compliance Information
You can access real-time performance data to complete compliance reports and manage employee exposure risks by monitoring relative airflow through the dust collector.
Managing Work in Challenging Environments
Remote monitoring can help manage staff exposure by reducing the need to access equipment and lower exposure to harsh weather, heights, ice, or debris. Overall, it supports your environmental, health, and safety management plan.
Pharmaceutical manufacturing is challenging enough, but at least monitoring your dust collector has become easier with today’s connected filtration technology.
Author Biography
Brent Nelson is the Director of Product Development, Industrial Aftermarket, and Services. Previously he was the global product manager for the Donaldson iCue connected filtration technology service. Nelson joined Donaldson in 2018 after six years at Digi International, where he was product manager for emerging IoT products. Prior to that, Nelson worked for 10 years as an electrical design engineer in both the defense and commercial markets. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota.