Some myths and realities about dust explosions

The necessary conditions for a dust explosion to occur are well-expressed by the explosion pentagon: (i) fuel, (ii) oxidant, (iii) ignition source, (iv) mixing of the fuel and oxidant, and (v) confinement of the resulting mixture. While it might seem relatively straightforward to prevent or mitigate a dust explosion by simply removing one of the pentagon elements, the field of dust explosion risk reduction is more complex. Building upon previous work by the author and other dust explosion researchers, the theme of the current paper is that this complexity is partially rooted in several erroneous beliefs. These beliefs ignore the realities found with full consideration of appropriate scientific and engineering principles. Several such myths and their factual counterparts are presented with an illustrative example. (C) 2014 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.