Ammonia is a common coolant used in refrigeration systems – but it is also highly flammable, making it important to use the appropriate ex equipment in the surrounding environment to make sure it ‘keeps its cool’ in the most literal sense.
On September 15th at IMHX 2016 in Birmingham, the Food Storage & Distribution Federation is hosting a seminar addressing the flammability requirements for ammonia refrigeration systems.
The FSDF says: “Ammonia has been used as a refrigerant for over 150 years. It is flammable and therefore requires careful safety consideration in the design and operation of ammonia refrigeration systems.”
It adds that the seminar will address “how the potential release of ammonia has been modelled to provide new calculation methods for establishing the hazard range”.
As with any potentially inflammable material, hazardous areas immediately surrounding any ammonia-based system should make use of appropriate ex equipment, rated for Zone 0, 1 or 2 as is suitable to the hazard assessment.
IMHX 2016 is the UK’s leading conference for the intralogistics sector, and is due to take place at the NEC in Birmingham on September 13th-16th.
