Dust Extraction and Fume Extraction specialists. Whether it's Downflow Booths, mobile filter units, or Hood Positioning Devices (Extraction Arms), flextraction have products to suit your dust and fume extraction requirements.

Minimising Flour and Ingredients Dust at Manchester Bakery Group

Posted January 19, 2010

To control flour and ingredients dust at the point of weighing in preparation for onward baking, Martins Foods Group in Manchester has invested in two 4m downflow booths, designed to contain dust over large areas of emission, from Flextraction Ltd, supplier and manufacturer of Local Exhaust Ventilation (LEV) products for dust and fume extraction in the work-place.

Martins Foods Group, one of Manchester’s longest established bakeries founded in 1922, has a modern 50,000ft² central bakery in Newton Heath producing and supplying over 150 bakery and sandwich products every day to the Group’s 28 retail outlets in the Manchester area. The Group also has a 30,000ft² factory including a large holding freezer in Radcliffe, Manchester supplying frozen bakery products cakes and desserts to supermarkets and Foodservice outlets.

Flextraction’s own modular design, 304 stainless steel downflow booths with an acoustically enclosed fan to minimise overall noise level, operate on a re-circulatory airflow principle with a clean evenly distributed down flow of air at 0.5m/second. Extraction is via low level primary roughing filters and secondary bag filters and this then provides down flow via ceiling mounted 99.95% filtration efficient HEPA (High Efficiency Particle Arrestor) filters suppressing any dust downwards away from the operator’s breathing zone. Pressure indicating devices continually monitor the extraction performance, whilst automatically controlling the 2 x 2.2kW direct driven variable speed fans to maintain optimum operating conditions. Louvered grilles in the lower rear wall capture the airborne contaminants. Because the booth operates using continuous re-circulation of the air within the booth, no airborne contaminates can escape into the external environment. Their modular designs allows a size to be manufactured to suit the application and they are found in a multitude of industries in addition to bakeries, these include dye and paint manufacturers as well as pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturers.

Neil Martin, Managing Director, Martins Foods Group said: “I first came across a Flextraction downflow booth during a visit to the Birds Bakery in Derby. I was impressed with the dust free conditions in the weighing area and although at the time we were already undertaking good practice to keep the dust levels as low as possible, I realised we could improve our own working environment to the betterment of our employees, as well as the Company. As a major bakery group in the Manchester area, we have to ensure that our operations meet with the most stringent health and safety standards and this investment has enhanced those standards. After discussions with Flextraction, we decided in 2008, to invest in a 4m booth, basically because it fitted into the size of our Newton Heath operations and once installed, we immediately saw environmental improvements. We made dust emission checks and found that the employees weighing up and tipping flour or ingredients into removable bowl mixers had the lowest emission levels of anywhere in the bakery, which was excellent. In early 2009 we decided to invest in another one for our Radcliffe operations with exactly the same results. Both booths have been an excellent investment providing a much cleaner working environment and require very little maintenance, we only have to replace the easy to access filters, which is a very easy task.”

Downflow and Downdraught Extraction Booths Order for flextraction Ltd

Posted March 06, 2009

flextraction Ltd, the Melton Mowbray based supplier and manufacturer of Local Exhaust Ventilation (LEV) products for industrial dust and fume extraction has recently designed, built and delivered a downdraught extraction booth and a down flow extraction booth to a German manufacturer of wet grinding, mixing and kneading products used in the manufacture of inks, paints, plastics, chemicals, ceramics and minerals.

The 2 metre Downdraught extraction booth is designed to control fumes created during liquid solvents dispensing and the 2m Downflow extraction booth is designed to control dust during the weighing of glass powders.  Both booths are fabricated from 304 stainless steel sheet and meet CoSHH legislation requirements.

The Downflow booth is a one piece design with the fan enclosure being acoustically lined to reduce noise levels. The air is collected at low level and filtered through 3-stage primary, roughing and secondary bag filters and then finally though HEPA filters providing 99.95% filtration efficiency.  The filtered air is discharged above the operators head with an evenly distributed down flow of 0.5m/second.  This system provides a continuous down flow to suppress dust below the operator’s breathing zone into the extraction area.

The extraction performance of the booth is monitored through pressure indicting devices and automatic control of the variable speed fans.

The Downdraught booth provides a laminar air flow with fumes being filtered through a F7 category primary filter and a carbon filter.  Extraction is through a rear mounted 7.5kW centrifugal fan discharging back into the room where this booth is located.  The fan starter is located on the booth control panel removing the need for any special on-site wiring.

Modular Stainless Steel Downflow Booths From Flextraction

Posted April 27, 2007

Flextraction Ltd, the Melton Mowbray, specialist solution provider capturing at source all forms of airborne contamination – dust, fume and oil mist has a range of modular, stainless steel, Downflow Booths available, operating on a re-circulating airflow principle.

These booths from 2m wide to 8m wide as standard, but available to suit specific requirements of customers, have been designed to suppress and extract dust over large areas of emission, where conventional local extractors would not be adequate nor effective. Typical process operations where these booths are used are weighing, sieving, filling and mixing as found in bakeries and food production plants as well as dye and paint manufacturing, pharmaceutical and chemical industries.

Features of these booths include the re-circulation of the airflow, whereby a clean down flow of air is supplied from the ceiling through HEPA (High Efficiency Particle Arrestor) filters suppressing dust away from the operator’s breathing zone at a down flow of 0.35m/second to 0.6m/second. Louvered grilles in the back wall collect airborne dust at a low level and filter it through a 3-stage filtration using primary roughing filters, secondary bag and HEPA filters discharging through the ceiling. The filtration efficiency is >99.99%. Inward airflow ensures that any airborne contaminants cannot escape into the external environment, whilst pressure indicators monitor the extraction performance with automatic control of the variable speed fan, which is housed in acoustically lined enclosures to reduce overall noise levels.

Also available as options are internal/external 415V/230V power supplies, an audible filter alarm for when the filter need changing as well as bag disposal and compactor.