Clean air in manufacturing plant settings has been a major concern for a long time, particularly for welding and cutting operations that must capture smoke and fumes. Now those concerns are extending to areas outside the building, too, as health, safety, and environmental officials become increasingly concerned to stop venting these pollutants to the outside.

The long-standing view of the smoke and fumes from welding and cutting operations is that they need to be captured at the point of source and filtered out of the ambient air. This often means that a vacuum system is installed to vent these from the building interior to the outside. Source extraction of smoke and fumes is effective, but many plants resist the investment in the equipment needed to do the extracting.

Yet, efficient and effective point-of-source handling of smoke, fumes, and oil mists can be a significant productivity enhancement, as well as a health, safety and environmental necessity, said Fergie Haughton, an air-systems specialist at Clean Air America. Clean Air America (www.clean-air.com) engineers, manufactures, installs and maintains a broad line of air-collection and filtration systems for welding and other operations in the aerospace, automotive, mining and construction industries.

“Many of our customers enjoy productivity improvements of between two percent and 10% after air-collection and filtration systems have been installed,” he said. “Even a two-percent improvement is very meaningful to many companies. It not only improves workers' safety and environment, but often also speeds up product deliveries and results in quality improvements as well.”

The need for capturing and filtering welding smoke, for example, has become increasingly important, particularly in those operations that yield hexavalent chromium (often referred to as “hex” chromium or chrome 6) and manganese. Often, it's not just the welders who are exposed but other workers in the area who are endangers by harmful concentrations of these materials.

Glen Tuplin, Facilities Manager at F&P Georgia, a manufacturer of components for Honda and Nissan, said that the 250,000-square-foot facility has air conditioning and heating costs of approximately of $2.00/cfm and $4.00/cfm respectively. He explained that an air-filtration system typically will take the welding fumes and smoke and exhaust them to the outside, which draws a lot of air out with it. Those systems must to use “make-up” air from the outside, which requires additional fans, and that adds costs to the exhaust system.

With the Clean Air America system that F&P uses, air is filtered then sent back into the building. “Our exhaust total air volume was 103,000 cfm,” Tuplin said. “Because our system captures and returns plant air rather than exhausting it to the outside, it was simple math to see that we could save $200,000 annually with the Clean Air America System.”

Clean Air America's Haughton said, that the typical payback for an air filtration system is surprising to most plant managers. “Depending on the size of the system and application it supports, the system can pay for itself in months to a year or two,” he said.

F&P Georgia also has capitalized on new technology that allows the blowers to run at a reduced speed when the filters are new, which means they use less power. As the filters get dirty or older, the speed of the blowers increases to maintain the efficiency of smoke extraction. “They have a true downflow cleaning system that uses compressed air to shock the dirt off the filters when the system goes into a cleaning cycle at night,” Tuplin said. “Depending on the amount of oil you use in the plant, you can get six-to-nine months of life out of the filters.”

The point-of-source capture and filtration of smoke and fumes from tools such as cutting and welding equipment is available in many forms, ranging from relatively small stand-alone units to completely integrated systems that support welding stations in booths or other enclosures, said Haughton. Because properly selected and engineered air-collection and filtration systems often improve plant air quality to above “normal,” they can enable workers to stay more alert and focused through the day, thereby avoiding the headaches and job-related errors that can occur when welders and workers in their vicinity are exposed to welding smoke and fumes. Thus, workers are more productive and expensive mistakes and rework may be reduced.

Another benefit of the internal air-collection and filtration system is fire suppression. Many different plant operations produce dust, aromatics, oil mists, and other flammable substances. Tuplin said including a fire suppression system was one of the major benefits of the Clean Air America system he had designed for F&P Georgia. The system has also contributed to plant appearance, which makes a difference in the automotive sector. “When you're dealing with auto makers of the stature and standards of Honda and Nissan, you expect them to be demanding,” he added. “And, when Honda comments that your plant is a benchmark for clean air quality, you know you've done the right thing.”

2010 Means Air Filtration a Must!

Jim Orr, national sales manager for Micro Air Clean Air Systems in Wichita, Kan., (www.microaironline.com), said reducing fumes and smoke in welding environments is getting to the critical stage. “That's the hot button issue this year. We're seeing a big push to comply the new hex-chrome regulations,” he said. “Hex-chrome comes from stainless steel welding, cutting and grinding. It's air-borne, and OSHA reduced the permissible from 50 to 5 micrograms — a 10- fold reduction — and companies have until 2010 to get systems in place to handle this, and to be compliant. And, the OSHA guy is the last person you want to see coming up the sidewalk.”

Micro Air Clean Air Systems provides “source extraction” in a variety of ways, such as a moveable capture arm, overhead hoods and other filtration devices that remove the fumes and smoke at the source. “That's the most reliable way to remove the fumes and smoke,” he said. “We sell ambient systems too, but it's better to capture it at the source.

Orr noted that small shops putting in air filtration systems will find the cost of these systems to be a “big hit” in the pocketbook. Yet, said Orr, “we feel that our systems have a lot of benefits such as better efficiencies and higher productivity, and might result in overall lower health-care costs.”