Effects of moisture content on explosion characteristics of incense dust in incense factory

Abstract

Incense is an indispensable material with religion and life in Asia. It is also a bridge of cultural expression and inheritance. Because the operating environment concentration of dust generated during the production process is considerable, most of the research pertaining to the hazard of incense factories has investigated air pollution, such as PM2.5, PM10, and VOCs. However, the production of incense causes dust dispersion, high temperature from ovens, and static electricity generated by friction. It can all possibly lead a dust explosion. To prevent and alleviate hazard from re-occurring, we used sandalwood dust at an incense factory in Taiwan, measured the effect of moisture content on the explosion parameters under normal conditions by 20-L apparatus, and used the oven to diminish its moisture content to 0%, 10.0%, and 15.0% as a control group to analyze the explosion characteristics at the different moisture contents, such as maximum explosion pressure and explosion limit. The results showed that the minimum ignition energy of dry dust was 30 mJ. Beyond doubt, incense factories face potential explosion hazards. The above results could be evaluated by the most dangerous range to avoid incense dust in this range at the workplace, lessening hazards caused by a dust explosion. The effect of moisture content on the suppression of the dust explosion was explored.

Explosion Severity of Rice Dust in a Spherical System

“…6 shows a congruent trend for dried rice, in which dried brown rice with the lowest moisture content (6.0 wt %) gave the highest explosion pressure at 18.9 bar, while Bario dried rice with the highest moisture content (9.0 wt %) recorded the lowest explosion pressure (11.1 bar), demonstrating the moisture content effect on the maximum overpressure development. Moisture could induce the agglomeration of dust particles, increase the dust effective particle size, and weaken the dust cloud dispersion [24][25][26][27]. The result is a significant reduction in blast severity and dust combustibility for white rice, black rice, and Bario rice.…”

Analysis of Explosion Severity of Tea Powder at Different Particle Size and Concentration in a Confined Space

“…Aside from the effect of particle size, moisture content could also be a factor in this pattern. Moisture has been shown to minimize the level of static electricity required for ignition [20][21]. Referring to Table 1, as the particle size increases, so does the moisture content.…”

Characterization of the explosiveness of wood dust

“…Moisture content of the dust is also an important factor, as it changes depending on the environmental conditions and air´s moisture, so it influences the explosiveness (Pérez-Peña et al, 2011;Dudarski et al, 2015). The risk of explosion decreases as the moisture content increases, the presence of water in the dust can reduce the explosion force and sensitivity to ignition of the dust cloud and it also causes agglomeration, which makes it harder to have a second explosion as it is more difficult to put the dust into suspension (Chang et al, 2022).…”