Calculation of dust emissions in stone crushing plants

Abstract

The atmospheric contamination caused by the emission of dust and gases represents the main environmental impact related to the plants that benefit aggregates for construction. During operation, there are several operations that lead to the greatest generation of dust, such as crushers (primary and secondary), screens for the classification of materials, transfer of material from or to conveyor belts (continuous transfer) and transfer of material from or to hoppers and trucks (discrete transfer). The objective of this paper was to show a procedure to quantitatively estimate the amounts of dust that are generated, taking as a basis for calculation the emission factors contained in document AP-42 of the US Environmental Protection Agency. As a result of the calculation, it was obtained that the total amount of sedimentable dust emitted per ton of material processed is about 51 g, of which 19 g correspond to the fraction with diameter less than 10 m. If it is taken into account that the volume of raw material processed in a day is equal to about 700 t, the total amount of dust produced would be equal to 35,7 kg, which would pass almost entirely to the outside, as this plant does not have devices and systems to protect against dust.

Keywords

• atmospheric pollution
• dust emission
• stone crushing plant
• emission factor