Combustible Metal Dust Collection for Medical Device Manufacturing

When it comes to manufacturing medical implants, there are all types.  Screws and rods can be high quality stainless steel, or titanium.  Recently GulfTech Casiba was asked by a local medical manufacturer to assist in process improvement efforts with their buffing and de-burring of steel and titanium parts and capturing combustible metal dust.

The existing process for de-burring and polishing process used a small dust collection device that was not capable of meeting the additional demand required, and was not code compliant.

The Solution: Separating the different metals into A Dry Dust Collector & Wet Dust Collector

In order to be compliant with NFPA requirements (National Fire Protection Association) Stainless Steel Parts and the Titanium Parts must be processed using separate machinery.
  GulfTech proposed a solution that separated the stainless steel process from the titanium process. The steel dust was captured in a separate dry dust collector ducted to the polishing process, and the Titanium dust capture was changed to being processed with a wet dust collector.

For the Titanium Implant parts, Gulftech proposed Wet Downdraft Tables to capture the Titanium Dust as it can be extremely combustible.  (From NFPA 484 – “Dry Titanium fines collected in cyclones have, on occasion, ignited spontaneously when allowed to drop freely through the air”).  

The end result is that the combustible metal dust is now safely captured with a wet capture process in a separate area, and the facility has completed an upgrade to a safe, effective dust capture process for its metal dusts.

To get more information of how Gulftech Casiba can help you manage combustible dust click here.