CONTROLLING INTERNAL POLLUTION IN A MODERN FOUNDRY

Author:
Mr. Joydip Ghosh, Vice President- Filter sales and Hosakote operations,
DISA India Limited
Address: DISA India Limited, 5th Floor, Kushal Garden Arcade, 1A Peenya Industrial Area,
Peenya 2nd Phase, Bangalore 560058, T: +91 8040201454, W: www.disagroup.com
E: Joydip.ghosh@noricangroup.com

ABSTRACT
The most challenging issue being faced by all of
us today is to ensure sustainability of the earth
for the generations to follow. The foundry
industry in India being the second largest
producers of castings in the world is facing many
challenges such as need to upgrade technology
as well as ensuring a safe working environment.
One major challenge faced by Foundry Industry
in India today is with respect to manpower. This
includes hiring and retaining, increasing manhour
cost and cost of health & safety.
Manufacturing processes in a Foundry involve a
large number of operations. Most of the
processes cause evolution of Dust, Fume, Gas
and Smoke. Dust is generated in large quantities

when preparing Sand for the moulds and core

sands, making the casting moulds and cores,
melting the metal, filling the moulds, knocking out
the casts and cores from the moulds etc. The
main constituent of the dust is silicon dioxide
(SiO2) and other additives.
A medium-sized foundry emits over 6000 tons of
dust per year emitted from various operations. A
need is there to determine the best possible dust
collection mechanism so that the same can be
collected and reused or disposed. It is a
challenge to dispose this large volume of dust in
environment friendly manner.
The word Foundries encompasses a broad
group from large multi building facilities that melt
iron to cast counterweight blocks for cranes
weighing hundreds of tons to a single room

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where precious metals are melted and cast into

intricate shapes for jewelry. In general, most
have the following common processes:
Sand handling,
Metal melting,
Mold pouring, and
Casting cleaning.
SAND HANDLING
This includes storage and handling of new sand,
equipment to separate the castings from the
molds, handling and reconditioning of the used
sand for future reuse; Example of equipment
used are, shake-out or knock-out, mechanical
and pneumatic conveying, bucket elevators,
mixers and sand coolers, etc.

and any refining may increase the air volume

required and consequently the collector size.
Dirty scrap with oils or paint increases the fume
generation during charging and the initial melt
and may require the addition of filtration aids to
prolong filter life. Fumes include metal oxides,
but the smoke resulting from contaminants such
as oil and paint, unburnt hydrocarbons, and
products of combustion including moisture and
fluxes used during the refining process produce
hygroscopic salts that may compromise the lift of
any filter media.
POURING
Heavy concentrations of metal oxides are
produced when the molten metal is exposed to
the oxygen in air during the pour. The heat
released during a pour creates high heat rise
velocities making close capture of fume a
challenge so designing of careful air
management is critical.
CASTING CLEANING

METAL MELTING

There are a number of furnaces widely used in

the ferrous and non-ferrous foundries. These
include Induction, Electric Arc, Reverb, Rotary,
Cupola, Crucible and Open Hearth Furnaces. It
is essential that exhaust volumes are sufficient
to control generated fume. Heavy fume
generated during charging, the initial melt stage

After the metal casting is broken free from the

mold, it is necessary to remove excess sand. In
the Shot Blast chamber the castings are
subjected to abrasive blasting or put through a
barrel tumbler where the action of the sand or
shop impinging on the casting loosens the
adhered sand and cleans the casting surface.
The cleaned casting may be subject to further
processing such as Deburring, Grinding,
Chipping or Machining.

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FOUNDRY SOLID WASTE STREAM

A foundry generates a considerable amount of

solid wastes of various types which may contain
toxic metallic components as well. This poses
problem of disposal and is potentially harmful for
creating land and water pollutions. The foundry
solid waste stream is mentioned below:

Used Foundry sand

Dust
From Raw materials
Melting dust
Casting dust
Fettling dust
Slag

From melting
From desulphurization

Scrap metal
Chips
Chips, Turnings
Abrasives

Damage of moving parts of machineries

in the foundry
Affect the shop floor atmosphere,
Affect human health (Siliocosis) thereby
increasing absenteeism and attrition rate
Poor quality castings due to excessive
fines / dead clay.
Loss of expensive Bentonite in the form
of dust, if extraction is not balanced (lack
of experience)

The solution to this is to have an effective dust

extraction system, which comprises of hoods or
enclosures for containment and extraction,
ducting for transportation and Dry Type Cassette
Filters for filtering the dust.
b) Furnace Fume Extraction
During melting of metal in Electric Induction
furnaces, components like iron, aluminum,
magnesium, zinc and other metals are added as
additives and melted along with the core metal.
Dust and Fumes are generated which must be
extracted and filtered.

AREAS WHERE DUST / FUME EXTRACTION

IS CRITICAL
Processes at manufacturing facilities in foundries
result in dust culmination and below are a
snapshot of various dusts in various industries.
a) Sand Plant Dust
During Sand Processing operations like in
Shakeout, Polygonal screens, conveying, etc.
fines are generated by burnt clay, sand grain
attrition etc.

Issues:

Health hazards to people working in

these areas
Fumes may contain hazardous gases
causing damages to the environment
Safe accessibility for operators

Issues:

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These fumes are to be captured through a

suitable Hood (Closed Capture hood / Canopy
hood / Tornado Hood / etc.), filtered in a Dry
Type Cassette Filter before letting out to the
atmosphere. Global trend is to use dry type dust
collectors to avoid secondary water pollution,
while using a Wet Scrubber.
Further, the fume extraction application demands
lot of safety precaution as the temperature at bag
filter inlet is high (in the range of 90-110degC)
and there are possibility of small sparks / flames
reaching the Bag Filter. DISA an expert with
years of experience has expertise to handle
these special fumes and filter them with suitable
safety arrangements.
c) Fettling / Finishing Dust

Basics of Foundry Dust Extraction

The characteristics of Foundry dust include
heavy, sticky, moist, abrasive and fine. The table
below highlights the variation of dust generation
across foundries.
Process

Expected Dust Load

Melting

> 0.5 Kg/Ton of Metal

Pouring / Cooling

Mostly Fumes

Shake Out / Sand

Preparation

5-10 Kg / Ton of Sand

Shot Blasting

40-50 Kg / Ton of Casting

Fettling / Casting
Finishing

2-5 g / m3 of air

During fettling and grinding operations on

castings, huge amount of fines are generated.
This dust primarily contains ferrous fines and is
quite harmful to human beings, as well as
corrosive in nature.
Issues:
Damage of moving parts of machineries
in the foundry
Damage painted surfaces of building /
machinery
Affect the shop floor atmosphere
Severely affect human health
Solution to this situation is effective collection of
dust from the source of generation, using suitable
hoods, curtains, booths, and filtering the dusty air
to let our clean pollution free air to the
environment.

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Collection of DUST and FUME in different

foundry operations
The foundry environment may be a potential source
of numerous toxic air contaminants such as silica,
CO, and thermal decomposition products; physical
hazards such as noise, heat and vibration; and
safety hazards must be adequately identified and
evaluated, and engineering controls, administrative
controls, work practices, and, when appropriate,
personal protective clothing and equipment should
be applied. Ventilation, enclosures, barriers, and
substitution of les toxic materials and hazardous
processes can be utilized to help control safety and
health hazards in different foundry operations.
To improve working conditions in foundries, proper
consideration should be given to controlling dust
and fumes, especially silica dust, by engineering
methods.
A plant that is well designed from
environmental and production standpoints will have
a substantially reduced need for dust control.
However, when a plant design is not adequate to
eliminate the dust and fume hazards, retrofit control
procedures must be introduced.

1. Extraction hood (canopy, side, swivel etc.)

2. Control equipment like
- Cartridge Type Dust Collector
- Bag Filters
- Wet Scrubbers
- Cyclones / Multiclones
3. Air mover ID fans for high temperature, high
volume or high pressure requirements.
In order to take care of all the design features DISA
has evolved the Cassette filter with specific focus on
foundries.
The cassette filter technology has proven to have the
lowest operating and maintenance costs coupled to
the following technical advantages;

To ensure a modern and dust / fume free foundry,

the following are basic steps,

CONTAINMENT by means of enclosures at

dust generating points to eliminate puffing
out of dust.
EXTRACTION of dust with air from
enclosures / suction hoods by ID Fan
installed after filter.
CARRYING of dust laden air from hoods
via ducting to filter
FILTERING of dust laden air to let out
clean air into the atmosphere

Special Design to suit Heavy dust and

Fume load experienced in Foundries.
Complete elimination of compressed air
and connected piping as it uses reverse air
fan for low pressure off line cleaning.
Supply of filter from the Foundry Experts
with over 100 years experience.
Guaranteed emission of 20 mg/Nm at the
stack (vs. Govt. regulation < 60 mg/Nm)
A fully factory welded, painted and
assembled unit.
No dust re-entrainment as dirty gas entry
from top of filter while clean gas exits at
bottom.
The filter design capable of handling high
dust loadings with ease.
Easy maintenance through access to clean
gas side from the front as the cassettes are
mounted horizontally.
The only filter design to have a dirty gas
distribution hood and the entire length of
filter is used for gas dust distribution.
Very Compact and Simplest form of OFF
line cleaning of dust laden bags.

The pollution control systems consisting of well

designed components like

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ADVANTAGES OF CASSETTE TYPE FILTERS

OVER CONVENTIONAL FILTERS
The point below highlights the various advantages
of CASSETTE FILTER over conventional filters.
1. Compact modular design having, very high
filtration efficiency as clean air chamber is
totally impermeable to dirty gas side.
2. The Cassette Filter unit is 30 40 % smaller
in size in comparison to any other filter design
for the same filter area.
3. The Cassette Filter is the only filter design
having entry of dirty gas at filter top through a
gas distribution plate hood totally eliminating
gas mal-distribution and extensive localized
wear and tear on bag.
4. As known, the total Differential Pressure (DP)
across a filter unit is = Mechanical DP + Dust
cake DP.
5. While the dust cake DP depends on the dust
loading and cleaning time cycle, the
mechanical dust cake DP is a function of gas
distribution and inlet velocities. With only a
velocity of only 5 - 8 m /sec at the dirty gas
distribution hood, it is ensured that even with
very heavy dust loading, the mechanical cake
DP remains the lowest.
6. The cleaning of filter fabric is done offline
where only three columns of cassettes are

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

sectionalized instead of the entire module.

Only middle column is cleaned while other
two do not receive any gas inflow, cleaning
taking place in total isolation.
Difference between gross & net filtration
areas is approx. 4% in comparison to a
minimum of 17% for one module isolation for
any offline filter.
The cleaning of Cassette is done by means of
a small reverse-air-fan working at a pressure
of 450 mm Wg, which is mounted on the filter
top itself, giving an air impulse through a
stationary damper through the cleaning
carriage.
Irrespective of the size of the filter or the
filtration area, the single fan unit driven by a
5.5 kW motor undergoes no change, unless
the dust demands.
The requirement /cost of compressed air, air feed-lines, oil and moisture separators / main
compressor unit are totally eliminated.
The unique cleaning carriage arrangement,
while avoiding loss of filtration area also
eliminates all poppet dampers, oil lubrication
lines, leakage, isolation dampers, making the
CASSETTE FILTER unit totally maintenance
free.
The unique cleaning arrangement ensures
that the fabric is most efficiently cleaned and

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13.

14.
15.

16.

not subjected to a harsh pulse jerk leading to

uniform cleaning and sustainability of dust
cake.
CASSETTE FILTER unit is custom designed
to take care of very high volumes and dust to
suit the process requirements with ease.
CASSETTE FILTER control logic can be both
PLC based and relay based.
The bag called as Cassette and the
supporting matt or cage is of simple rugged
design, with a triple-stitch-lap throughout.
There is no chance of the matt or the bag
falling down eliminating the use of thimbles or
the matt tearing the bag due to sharp edges,
broken wires / jagged weld surfaces.
The cassette has simply to be inserted
horizontally into the slot provided in the
chamber wall in the front and locked with a

spring, thus eliminating the need for clamping

with nuts and bolts, tensioning hooks for bag
alignment or ring protection in bags.
17. CASSETTE FILTER unit is factory assembled
in fully welded condition complete with all
internal fittings and can be commissioned
within the shortest possible time.
18. Minimum downtime required for maintenance
as only the module door on the clean airside
needs to be opened to have access to all
internal components, including the entire
cassettes, irrespective of the size of the filter
unit.
19. The filter is designed for a particulate
3
Emission of 20 mg / Nm or lowers as
demanded, a value difficult to achieve from
conventional units.

Secondary aspects:
While the filters are efficiently doing the dust collection, the dust generation while discharging into the bins
at the bottom of hoppers due to the fall is becoming a critical pollution hazard.
In order to avoid this problem an effective Pneumatic conveying of dust to a centralized silo can be a
solution. Use of telescopic chutes for dust discharge into Bins/Trolleys can also provide an additional
solution for this problem.
Conclusion:
In order to control pollution in an effective way, to ensure compliance to norms it is necessary that entire
Pollution control System including all devices are designed with high reliability, cost effectiveness and low
operating cost. Detailed knowledge of Foundry process and nature of dust is key to design and implement
a reliable efficient system. A continuous focus on these aspects will ensure green foundries in future.
Disclaimer Please note that the majority of contents in this paper have not been published earlier in any journal or
presented in any national / International seminar or conference.

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