BUSTING THE DUST

AS MINERS LOOK TO MAINTAIN HIGH SAFETY STANDARDS WHILE REDUCING THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT, THE DUST CRAWLER'S AUSTRALIAN DEBUT COULDN'T HAVE COME AT A BETTER TIME.

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Miners often work in tough environmental conditions, including those with high levels of dust.

This dust exposure can lead to the development of respiratory illnesses such as pneumoconiosis and silicosis if a site doesn't take a proactive approach in managing air quality.

To combat this challenge, Tecpro is bringing the Dust Crawler to the Australian mining sector.

Developed by Italian emissions control equipment manufacturer EmiControls, the Dust Crawler is the world's first fully electric dust control vehicle designed to tackle dust suppression on mine sites, quarries and other industrial operations.

“In 2018, I was visiting a site in the northern part of Scandinavia, where there was this large extraction company with lots of mining and quarries,” EmiControls dust division manager Alverman Soster told Australian Mining. “We were installing another system for them, and we spoke with the site manager, who explained they were having an issue with their tailing pond as it was filled with large amounts of mud because they were pumping with water.

“The problem with that was the material becomes dry and it's so fine that even light wind creates this cloud of dust going for kilometres.”

The only way the company could manage this issue was to use a helicopter to spray water over the area.