Webinar: The Forgotten Hazard of Smoldering Dust Fires and Self-Heating of PowdersWebinar: The Forgotten Hazard of Smoldering Dust Fires and Self-Heating of Powders

On Wednesday, March 12, 2025, at 2 p.m. Eastern/11 a.m. Pacific, Dr. Ashok Ghose Dastidar, PhD MBA, Fellow Engineer, vice president, Westinghouse Electric Co., Dust & Flammability Testing and Consulting Services – Fauske & Associates, will present “The Forgotten Hazard of Smoldering Dust Fires and Self-Heating of Powders” as part of Powder & Bulk Solids' DryPro webinar series.

While dust explosions are a serious hazard in the process industries, an often-overlooked hazard is that of dust fires and self-heating. The historic NFPA dust standards like NFPA 652, 654, 61, 664, and 484 had provisions to mitigate dust fires and address self-heating hazards. The new NFPA 660 has inherited these provisions.

This presentation will review the various aspects of dust fire mitigation and focus on testing methods and analysis for self-heating of powders, harmful/flammable gas evolution from smoldering dust, and also comment on hot ember ignition of bulk piles. The presentation will also address the phenomenon of bulk materials becoming hazards when they are exposed to water – dangerous when wet. Methods to ascertain these hazards will be presented and mitigation strategies will be discussed.

Dastidar specializes in chemical process hazards analysis, flammable dusts, liquids & vapors explosion, and combustion hazards analysis, and testing and electrostatic hazards analysis. He has extensive technical experience performing tests and analyzing data to determine electrostatic hazards, dust explosibility hazards, flammability hazards, thermal stability and reactivity hazards, and hazard analysis and risk mitigation. Dastidar has published 12 articles and presented at more than 23 conferences. He has a Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, Dalhousie University, an M.A.Sc., Chemical Engineering, Technical University of Nova Scotia, M.B.A, Management Science, Saint Mary's University, and a B.S., Honors in Chemistry from Dalhousie University.

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