18th Apr, Shanghai

How Much Do You Know About The Grain Unloading Pollution
Grain as a kind of typical dry bulk cargo, unlike container handling, is easily to cause pollution during unloading. Thereinto, cassava is one of the heaviest pollution cargos especially under non-enclosed operation,since the starch content in which is as high as 70-75%.

For most of people in the industry, only hear about the grain unloading pollution but never know how terrible it is. Recently the staff of GENMA Bulk visited one port in China and experienced closely the true pollution situation in the frontline.

As figure1 shows, the work environment is very bad. Even with helmet, gauze mask and protection suit, worker's face, eye socket and nasal cavity are still bestrewed with dust after operation. Chronically working under such kind of environment, you can image how seriously the workers' health will be harmed. More than that, the cleaning work will be a big job after unloading operation. The ground and the vessel are all covered with dust. The dust pollution to the water can't be ignored either.

Such heavy pollution, besides the humanitarianism consideration, the actual business risk is which will lead to resident complaint and government punishment and supervision. The ultimate result is the business will be suspended until the problem is solved. For some people, maybe they can ignore the health and safety of the workers but what they will never neglect is the financial loss during business standstill. Above all, the close of whole business will happen if the pollution still exists.

The Root Of Grain Unloading Pollution, Non-Enclosed Operation
The dust pollution of grain unloading differs due to various cargo characters. As to cassava, which contains very high starch content and without skin protection, generally will be exported in slice, cube or pellet shape. Thus the dust pollution is very heavy.

For most of the developed countries, they often choose enclosed unloading solution to avoid pollution. In China, most of users choose the portal crane to unload with grab and this is the root reason for the dust pollution. Along with enhanced environmental awareness, more and more Chinese ports and logistics companies realize that it is imperative to control the dust pollution otherwise the loss from the claims and government supervision will be inestimable.

Minimize The Pollution, Maximize Your Profit And Make It Sustainable
So, how to decrease the dust pollution? We can make it in 2 segments, one is before the cargo out of the vessel and the other is after the cargo out of the vessel.

The solution before the cargo out of the vessel could be changing the non-enclosed unloading into enclosed operation. The portal crane unloading will lead to material loss and terrible dust emission, while the pneumatic ship unloader will operate in closed environment that the dust pollution can be minimized. Furthermore, GENMA GPU series pneumatic ship unloader equipped with multi-stage turbo blower, which will be more automated while with little noise.

Then how to control the annoying dust after the cargo out of the vessel? ---change the ordinary hopper into environmental hopper. As the figure 3 shows, the current used hopper without any dustproof measure which causes serious dust to the surroundings.

The environmental hopper uses the "FLEX-FLAP" dedusting system and equipped with 4 efficient dedusting units to create the downward flow which is no less than 1m/s via induced-draft. In this way, no dust will overflow or leak. After this, the gathered dust will be blown into the hopper again. Under these measures, nearly no dust emission exists. GENMA delivered 3 units environmental hoppers to APM Terminal which owned by Maersk Group 2015. As the figure 4 shows, one of the 3 is in operation. We could see from the original picture that nearly no dust leakage appears.

Above 2 dust control measures could be used at the same time or alternatively if under limited budget. Either used at the same time or alternatively, both can reduce the dust pollution to make the business sustainable and maximize the profit.
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