Dust Explosions In The Food Industry Wed, 03/21/2012 - 1:43pm Vahid Ebadat, Ph.D., CEO, Chilworth North America From Manufacturing.net, an article by Dr. Vahid Ebadat, CEO Chilworth. This feature originally ran in the March 2012 issue of Food Manufacturing , a Manufacturing.net sister publication . A food processor's guide to understanding how dust explosions happen and what can be done to prevent them. The vast majority of powders in the food industry can form explosible dust clouds if the particle size is small and moisture content is low. Although explosible dust cloud concentrations are not normally expected to be present within processing buildings, explosible dust clouds are regularly formed inside material handling or processing equipment when bins are being filled, powders are being transferred or dust is being collected in a dust collector. The particle size of the dust is a property which influences the explosi...