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34 / October 2020 powderbulk.com ACHIEVING ROI IN OPERATING A DUST COLLECTION SYSTEM Dust collection systems help protect workers and equipment from nuisance and dangerous airborne particles. While these systems are costly, you can achieve a return on investment (ROI) by understanding the true costs of operating a dust collection system and taking informed action to reduce these expenses. This article presents the three main cost contributors that impact a budget required to operate a cartridge-style dust collector and how to mitigate those costs to get the most cost-effective ROI for your process. Taylor Morgan, Camfil APC relatively quickly), and the maintenance labor, pro- duction downtime, and waste disposal costs that come with servicing the equipment, as shown in Figure 1. With these three major costs in mind, the greatest cost savings can be achieved over time by consuming less electricity and compressed air, using fewer cartridge filters, and performing less-frequent filter changeouts. Energy costs A dust collector consumes electrical energy the entire time the collector is running, but the electrical load's largest portion goes to the fan motor that moves the air through the system. In addition, a lot of energy is used to heat or cool the air that replaces the air that the dust collection system constantly draws out of the plant or facility it's cleaning. Reducing fan motor energy use. The fan motor's electricity consumption is directly proportional to the volume of air, expressed as cubic feet per minute (cfm), that the motor is moving through the system. However, dust collectors are variable systems in that the collec- C ontrolling the dust generated by bulk sol- ids processing and handling is critical for employee safety, product quality, and main- taining regulatory compliance, which is why powder and bulk solids manufacturers use dust collection systems. Purchasing and operating a high-efficiency dust collection system designed specifically for your operation is a necessary expenditure because the sys- tem will filter hazardous and nuisance dust to make the indoor environment safer. Not only does a dust collection system ensure a safer workplace but investing in the right system means a return on investment (ROI) for years to come. An ROI measures the amount of money that's spent on main- taining a major financial investment in relation to the investment's original implementation costs. This infor- mation is used as a performance measure to determine the efficiency of a particular investment — in this case, a dust collection system. You can also compare one dust collection system's ROI to another's ROI to deter- mine which system is more efficient. You can achieve a better ROI over the long-term by evaluating the major contributing factors to the cost of operating a dust col- lection system and then taking the necessary steps to reduce these expenses. Three major cost contributors If you're processing a dust-producing material, you're going to need a dust collection system. While there are many different dust collector types, for the purpose of this article, we'll be focusing on achieving an ROI with a cartridge-style dust collector, which is widely used across the powder and bulk solids industry. There are three major cost contributors to operating a car- tridge-style dust collector. There's the energy required to run the collector, the purchase price of cartridge filters and other consumables (items that will be used FIGURE 1 Many costs need to be considered when implementing a cartridge-style dust collector. Energy costs Electricity Compressed air Consumables costs Cartridge filters Transportation Inventory Filter changeout labor Waste disposal