Laboratory Testing of Explosible/Combustible Dust

Tests were conducted by Center for Agricultural Air Quality Engineering and Science (CAAQES) to determine the Minimum Explosive concentration (MEC) for Cotton gin dust, XX dust and corn starch. It was found that cotton gin dust does not have a MEC.  Test was also performed by a commercial laboratory as per the procedure described in ASTM Standard E1226 for gin dust. OSHA has classified the cotton gin dust a combustible dust with a MEC of 50 g/m³. The stoichiometric analysis of combustion process for cotton gin dust shows that the pressure rise inside the chamber would be because of the dust burning inside the chamber. This indicates that the increase in the pressure is not because of the propagation of flame through the dust cloud. Thus the explosion in the 20L chamber while testing for gin dust would have been resulted from the chemical reaction inside the chamber.