Study on explosion characters of HDPE dust inerted by CaCO3 and NaHCO3

Abstract

To prevent high density polyethylene (HDPE) dust explosions, this study evaluated HDPE's explosive sensitivity characteristics, and comparatively examined two inert dust types (CaCO3 and NaHCO3) to mitigate the explosive sensitivity of HDPE dust. In the serials of experiments, the 1.2 L Hartmann tube and Godbert-Greenwald furnace were used respectively to measure the minimum ignition energy (MIE) and minimum ignition temperature (MIT) of HDPE dust. The findings demonstrated that the MIE and MIT of HDPE are 56.8 mJ and 320 °C under the most sensitive situation. Second, both CaCO3 and NaHCO3 can inhibit the explosive sensitivity of HDPE with the variation of several parameters (i.e., quality percentage and particle sizes). Specially, as the quality percentage of 38–48 μm NaHCO3 come to 70%, the HDPE/NaHCO3 will not be explosive. Finally, NaHCO3 had a better inerting effect than CaCO3 in the reduction of explosive sensitivity of HDPE.