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Application
Bulk Bag and Manual Charging Stations
The dust cloud follows the operator, not the equipment. Capture designed around the motion, at a face velocity that does not lift the powder off the scoop.
The Problem
Manual charging is where operators meet dust directly. Tipping a sack, discharging a bulk bag, or hand-scooping into a mixer generates a dense, short-duration cloud at breathing height — the worst possible combination for exposure.
What Makes It Difficult
The dust cloud follows the operator, not the equipment. A hood placed for the equipment misses it. Capture has to be designed around the actual motion: where the sack is cut, where it is tipped, where it is discarded.
Face velocity is a balance. Too little and the cloud escapes. Too much and light powder is pulled off the scoop, wasting product and creating the very dust you are collecting.
Ergonomics decide compliance. A station that is awkward to use gets bypassed, and a bypassed station collects nothing. Grate height, reach distance and sack disposal all matter more than they sound.
What We Specify
Integrated bag dump stations with the hood, grate and extraction designed as one unit rather than an extraction arm added to a hopper.
Face velocity calculated for the material — typically lower for light powders than instinct suggests.
Load-rated grates that take an operator’s weight, because eventually one will stand on it.
Sanitary stainless where the duty is food or pharmaceutical, with a discharge that breaks down for cleaning without tools.
Explosion protection where the powder warrants it — and for flour, sugar, starch and most organic powders, it does.
Sanitary stainless construction with smooth welds and minimal crevices, cleanable to a documented standard, with capture designed around how operators actually work.
Read the case study →Where This Applies
Food and beverage ingredient addition, pharmaceutical dispensing, chemical batch make-up, pigment and additive charging, and cement or mortar bagging.
Related equipment
What we typically specify
Tell Us About the Application
Send us the process, the material and the constraint. We will tell you what we would specify — and if something simpler would serve you better, we will say so.