Nuclear Power Facility Achieves Zero-Fugitive-Dust Production with Central Dust System

Case Snapshot

Item	Project Details
Client Industry	Nuclear Power Construction — large nuclear facility building a new intelligent powder production line
Materials Handled	25kg bagged cement powder and construction additives
Core Solution	Automatic powder conveying & storage line + full-line central dust extraction system + PLC intelligent control
Key Benefits	Zero fugitive dust emissions · Dust automatically recycled as usable material · Unmanned PLC operation · Full environmental compliance

Client Background

Our client — a large nuclear power institution — was constructing a new, high-efficiency intelligent powder production line. The environmental and operational requirements at a nuclear site are exceptional: near-zero tolerance for airborne particulate matter, strict cleanliness compliance, and a mandate to meet green intelligent factory standards from day one.

Before engaging WIJAY, the facility’s planned conventional approach to 25kg bag handling would have created the following compounding problems — each unacceptable at a nuclear site:

Heavy dust from manual 25kg bag unpacking. Workers manually slitting and emptying 25kg cement powder and additive bags generate dense airborne dust at the unpacking point — a direct health hazard and a compliance violation in a nuclear operating environment.

Material waste at every transfer point. Bag residue and airborne powder loss during unpacking, conveying, and weighing stages produced measurable raw material waste per shift, with no mechanism to recover it.

Fugitive dust across all production equipment. Stone elevators, sand elevators, weighing vessels, belt conveyors, and mixers each generated uncontrolled dust emissions. Without a centralized capture system, fugitive dust spread across the entire workshop floor.

Strict environmental compliance pressure. Nuclear facility standards require near-zero fugitive dust emissions across the production environment. Conventional production practices could not satisfy site certification requirements.

High labor cost and physical burden. Manual bag handling, manual monitoring, and manual intervention at multiple stages drove up headcount requirements and exposed workers to sustained powder dust exposure.

No digital production monitoring. Without automated controls or data visibility, production managers had no real-time insight into equipment status, throughput, or material consumption — making systematic optimization impossible.

Running into similar challenges at your facility? Contact a WIJAY engineer to discuss what a turnkey solution looks like for your production line.

Core Customer Requirements: Five Non-Negotiables

After a detailed on-site assessment, the client defined five hard requirements that had to be met simultaneously. Most equipment suppliers in the bulk powder handling market can address one or two of these. WIJAY was selected because we could deliver all five through a single integrated system.

• Automatic transfer and storage for 25kg cement powder and additive bags — no manual tipping or bag-emptying on the production floor
• Fully enclosed dust capture at the unpacking stage — zero open-air powder exposure during bag slitting and material discharge
• Captured dust automatically recycled back into the process — eliminating material loss and avoiding waste disposal costs
• Unified central dust control for the entire workshop — one integrated negative-pressure system serving all dust-generating equipment simultaneously
• PLC unmanned intelligent operation to meet green factory certification standards — automated controls, precise feeding, and live production data visibility with minimal direct labor

WIJAY Custom Integrated Solution

Most vendors in the bulk powder handling market supply either a conveying line or a dust extraction system — rarely both, and almost never as a single engineered, co-commissioned package. WIJAY designed and delivered a fully integrated nuclear power plant powder handling system comprising two complete, complementary modules built to work together from day one.

Module 1: Automatic Powder Conveying & Storage Line

This module handles the complete intake-to-storage workflow for 25kg bagged cement powder and additives — fully automatically, from the moment bags arrive on the feed belt through to pressurized storage in the silos below.

Complete process flow:

Belt Conveyor → Barrel Sieve Bag Unpacker → Bag Slitting & Integrated Screening → 2 × 100L Temporary Storage Tanks → Gravity Discharge → 2 × 5m³ Storage Silos

25kg bags are loaded onto the belt conveyor and transported to the unpacking station — eliminating manual carry and tip operations at the feed point. The barrel sieve bag unpacker performs bag slitting, material discharge, and coarse screening in a single integrated unit; packaging film and contaminants are automatically separated from the powder stream.

Discharged powder transfers into two 100-liter temporary storage tanks, buffering material flow between unpacking and downstream storage to ensure steady, controlled feeding without interruption. Material then drops via gravity feed from the buffer tanks into two 5-cubic-meter storage silos, providing sufficient on-hand inventory for continuous production runs.

A pulse jet dust collector continuously captures airborne particles generated during bag slitting, discharge, and conveying. Critically, captured dust is returned automatically via pulse backflush directly back into the temporary storage tanks — not vented to waste. Every gram of powder caught by the collector re-enters the process as usable material, turning what is normally a disposal problem into a material recovery advantage.

Dust Recycling Advantage: On conventional bag unpacking lines, airborne dust at the unpacking station represents direct raw material loss. WIJAY’s closed-loop pulse backflush system returns captured dust back into the process — delivering meaningful cost savings per shift on high-value cement additives, compounding over the production lifetime of the line.

Module 2: Full-Line Central Dust Extraction System

Addressing dust at the unpacking station alone is insufficient for nuclear-site compliance. Every major piece of downstream production equipment generates its own dust — and a facility handling cement powder at this scale cannot rely on isolated local hoods or worker PPE as a compliance strategy.

WIJAY simultaneously engineered a central dust extraction system to bring the entire workshop under one unified negative-pressure collection network. The system captures fugitive dust at every dust-generating point across the production line, pulls it through a common collection trunk to a central high-efficiency filtration unit, and discharges clean air — achieving comprehensive fugitive emission control across all process stages.

Equipment covered by the central dust extraction system:

• Stone elevators
• Sand elevators
• Additive weighing tanks
• Stone and sand weighing vessels
• Stone belt conveyors
• Mixers

The unified negative-pressure network connects all six dust source categories through a single central collection system — one filter unit, one maintenance point. High-efficiency filtration treats all captured airborne particulate before any air is returned to the production environment, meeting the strict clean-air standards required at a nuclear facility. Full-process fugitive emission control means no uncontrolled release points remain anywhere on the production floor.

Why Central Extraction vs. Multiple Local Collectors? Local dust hoods at each machine are the conventional approach — and they consistently underperform in high-dust bulk powder environments. Air currents, equipment vibration, and fluctuating airflows mean local hoods miss a significant fraction of dust at peak generation moments. Central negative-pressure extraction maintains consistent suction across all capture points simultaneously, regardless of which equipment is running — delivering more reliable suppression and a lower total installed cost than six separate local units.

PLC Intelligent Control: Unmanned, Precise, and Data-Driven

Both the powder conveying line and the central dust extraction system operate under a unified PLC control architecture. From startup sequencing to conveying speed regulation to dust collector pulse-cleaning cycles, every operation executes automatically — without manual intervention at the machine level.

Full automatic operation. Belt conveyor, barrel sieve bag unpacker, pulse jet dust collector, and silo discharge all sequence automatically via PLC. No operator is required at the machine during normal production.

Precise feeding control. Controlled gravity discharge from the 100L buffer tanks to the 5m³ silos maintains consistent material flow rates, preventing bridging and surge — critical for downstream weighing and batching accuracy.

Labor reduction. Automation replaces manual bag handling, manual dust monitoring, and manual silo management. Headcount requirements at the powder handling station drop substantially after commissioning.

Digitized production data. Equipment status, throughput, and dust collector performance are logged and available for production management review — enabling data-driven efficiency optimization over time.

Stable, consistent operation. PLC execution eliminates the variability inherent in manual operations. Every shift runs the same process sequence at the same parameters — throughput consistency improves and waste from process deviation is eliminated.

Green factory standards met. Automated dust capture, dust recycling, emission control, and reduced direct labor meet the green intelligent factory criteria required for nuclear facility environmental compliance certification.

Measurable On-Site Project Results

Zero visible dust at the unpacking station. The barrel sieve bag unpacker with integrated pulse jet dust collection eliminated visible airborne dust at the unpacking point entirely. Workers in the area no longer require respiratory protection during normal operations.

100% of captured dust recycled back to process. Powder captured by the pulse backflush system returns to the 100L temporary storage tanks — not vented to atmosphere. Every gram of cement additive caught by the collector re-enters the process stream as usable material.

All six dust sources brought under centralized control. Stone elevators, sand elevators, additive weighing tanks, stone and sand weighing vessels, stone belt conveyors, and mixers — previously uncontrolled dust sources across the workshop — are now connected to the central negative-pressure extraction network.

Unmanned powder handling stage. PLC automation eliminated the need for dedicated workers stationed at bag unpacking, conveying, and silo management positions. Direct labor at the powder intake section was significantly reduced after commissioning.

Full nuclear site environmental compliance achieved. The combination of enclosed unpacking, central dust extraction, and PLC-controlled operation brought the new production line into compliance with the facility’s environmental standards, enabling green factory certification.

Single-vendor accountability. WIJAY supplied, integrated, commissioned, and validated both the conveying line and the central dust extraction system under one contract — one point of accountability for design, installation, and after-sales support.

Ready to achieve similar results? Contact WIJAY to discuss a turnkey solution for your powder handling line.

Applicable Industries

The integrated powder conveying and central dust extraction system architecture deployed at this nuclear power facility is directly applicable to any high-dust, high-compliance bulk powder production environment:

• Nuclear construction powder handling
• Chemical powder processing
• Cement and building materials manufacturing
• Mineral processing and mining powder operations
• Fertilizer and agricultural chemical production
• Lithium battery material handling
• Any high-dust bulk powder production line operating under strict environmental or cleanliness standards

Related Solutions

• Automatic bag unpacking and conveying equipment — dust-free bag unpacking machines for 25kg and 50kg bags with belt conveyor integration
• Pulse jet dust collectors — high-efficiency cartridge and bag-type collectors with automatic pulse backflush and dust recirculation
• Central dust extraction systems — whole-workshop negative-pressure networks for multi-equipment dust capture in cement, chemical, and mineral applications
• PLC intelligent batching lines — fully automated powder batching and conveying systems with data visualization and unmanned operation capability

Get a Custom Production Layout — Free Consultation

Whether you’re building a new powder handling or upgrading an existing one to meet stricter environmental standards, WIJAY engineers a solution that covers conveying, dust extraction, and automation together — not as three separate procurement headaches.

Tell us your requirements:

• Material type and bag format
• Production capacity requirement
• Number of dust-generating equipment points
• Environmental compliance standard
• Site constraints or existing equipment to integrate