What is Dustless Blasting?
Over time, the weather and surrounding environment takes its toll on anything which is exposed. Metal starts to rust, surfaces get dirty, and paint begins to flake or peel. With the right technology and equipment, the restoration process can become a lot easier. Dustless Blasting is a fantastic way to restore a huge array of surfaces. The following will give you a great overview of Dustless Blasting and its benefits.
Dustless Blasting has been around for a few years now and has been developed over this time. It has taken on a variety of names such as wet blasting, wet sandblasting, vapour blasting, slurry blasting, wet abrasive blasting, and Dustless Blasting.
You’ve heard of sandblasting – shooting abrasive media at a surface, using compressed air.
You’ve heard of pressure washing – shooting pressurised water at a surface.
Dustless Blasting is a combination of the two. Shooting abrasive media at a surface, using compressed air, but also mixed with water.
This involves mixing water and abrasive inside a pressurised blast tank. The mixture of air, water and abrasive is propelled onto the surface being blasted using high-volume compressed air. It works similarly to dry sandblasting, but the main difference is that the blast media gets moistened first before being propelled onto the surface. In dry blasting, when the abrasive gets in contact with a hard surface, the particle usually shatters or breaks, propelling finer particles into the air. This adds to the dust that is already present in the dry media. The impact can also release dry sparks with static electricity.
On the other hand in Dustless Blasting when the medium impacts a surface, the finer particles are encapsulated in water droplets. The extra water will weigh down the particles, preventing dust from getting airborne.
Is it really “Dustless”?
The answer is, “mostly”. The use of the term dustless blasting is actually slightly misleading as no wet abrasive machine can be 100% dust-free. The media used and the coating on the substrate being blasted (e.g. paint) will produce approximately 4-6% waste, but it is much less than dry blasting.
Benefits of adopting Dustless Blasting technology
Dustless blasting offers a number of distinct benefits over manual processes such as sanding or wire-wheeling, or traditional dry sandblasting:
Dust suppression
Abrasive and water are mixed within the blast tank. During the blasting process, water will encapsulate both the abrasive and coating being removed. The trapped abrasives are no longer airborne, and they end up falling to the ground leaving the surrounding environment free from the mess.
Easy containment
The fact that water is combined with the abrasive means that there will be no ignitable sparks or dust plumes. This allows blasting to be undertaken even in open surroundings or in the presence of other workers nearby. Furthermore, there are less expenses involved in cleanup.
Portability
The system is fully mobile and can be easily transported. So permanent fixtures or large structures like pipelines and bridges can still be taken care of using Dustless Blasting.
Efficient and safe
Contrary to traditional sandblasting, the use of water leads to lower levels of toxic dust plume. The risk of dust inhalation is much lower. In addition, there is the added benefit of comfort and productivity as it increases visibility, ability to manoeuvre while diminishing the risk of accidents.
No shutdowns
The system is safe for the environment, generates no ignitable sparks, and is easy to contain. Therefore, it is the most preferred tool for working in offshore rigs, live pipelines, as well as in residential or populated areas as people around continue with their daily activities.
Friendly to cars
Dustless Blasting has less friction heat and does not dent/wrap thin metals like bonnet. Consequently, this is the ideal paint stripping method in the automotive restoration sector.
Environmentally friendly
Dry blasting is permitted in contained booths only because the dust and chemicals generated can spread over a large area. On the other hand, the water in wet abrasive blasting traps the dust and it falls to the ground. As an example, if a car were to be blasted in the centre of a football field, the dust from dry blasting would cover the entire field whereas with Dustless Blasting, it would be contained just to the centre circle.