A company that provides contamination control solutions to the mining industry needed to suppress dust from mined ore on a conveyor belt. Inexpensive spray nozzles supplied from the plant’s water system suppressed the dust, but resulted in a fair amount of runoff. This wasn’t an issue in a lot of their applications, but environmental regulations called for containment of the runoff from this particular material, so it was critical to minimize that runoff.

The conveyor belt was six feet (1.8 meters) wide and was relatively slow moving, so I specified two Model AF8020SS 1/8 NPT Internal Mix Flat Fan Pattern Air Atomizing Spray Nozzles, each capable of spraying up to 4.27 gallons per hour of water over a 47″ width at a distance of 15″ from the surface. This allowed for flexibility in mounting, and some overlapping spray in the middle, where dust suppression was needed most – and any excess spray would be contained in the bulk of the material.

At first, they were skeptical about the size of the 1/8 NPT Air Atomizing Spray Nozzle. The liquid nozzle they were using was “about as large as a baseball” and was supplied with a 1/2″ pipe. Once installed, though, they were impressed with the fine mist in the broad, thin pattern that was easily – and widely – controllable by regulating the air & liquid supply pressures.

EXAIR Air Atomizing Spray Nozzles are THE ideal solution when you need low flow rates – whether it’s for conservation of expensive liquids, eliminating drips or runs when applying coatings, or preventing runoff like in this application. If you want to find out how EXAIR can help you get the most out of the liquid you’re spraying – and your compressed air usage – give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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