Spin filters for mine-dust containment

Inertial spin filters use a vortex to remove dust particles from the environment. These filters are especially suitable for filtering air supplied into motor control centres and transformer rooms and are particularly useful in the mining industry, where dust is created during blasting, loading, materials handling and processing.

In the past, spin filters on mines have been primarily used to protect compressors in compressor rooms. While compressors do have their own on-board filters, the high levels of dust in a mine environment lead to these filters becoming clogged quickly and easily.

The type of dust on mines also contributes to the damage caused to compressors. Mine dust is usually created from newly broken rock, leading to more jagged or irregular-shaped dust particles, which are far more abrasive than dust found in an urban or domestic environment.

Dust in a compressor combines with the oil from the machine to form an abrasive grinding paste, which damages the compressor’s inner workings. This brings mine production to a halt and adds to costs.

Dust, especially from metal deposits, can also be particularly harmful to information technology-controlled systems and electronic controllers on large mining machinery. While these systems might have their own secondary filtration units, the addition of a spin filter helps to reduce the risk of these equipment filters becoming obstructed by coarser dust particles.

Recently, RTS Africa installed a large spin filter at a key platinum mine near Rustenburg. The spin filter will feed filtered air at 6 000 m³ an hour into a variable speed drive (VSD) system, to protect the VSD using back channel cooling. The mine requires that the intake air to the VSD be filtered down to 1 micron, which is a particularly high standard of purity. RTS Africa's inertial spin filters remove 98% of all dust particles down to 15 microns, 93% of particulate matter above 10 microns and 80% of all airborne particles above 5 microns.