Coating booths regulations: requirements for safe systems

In many industrial sectors, painting booths are an essential part, in order to ensure optimal conditions for the worker, whose health cannot and must not be endangered. For this reason, however, the regulations on painting booths and on the suction and filtration systems to which they must be integrated must be fully respected. In this article we want to give you some information to ensure safety at work.

Industrial painting and its risks

The painting booths are used in all industrial fields in which the products must go through a painting process to be finished. This process, in fact, leads to the dispersion of particles in the air which, if inhaled by workers, can cause serious damage to health, starting from the respiratory system and, in the worst cases, reaching the nervous system.

These dusts represent an additional risk, because they make the atmosphere that contains them potentially explosive.

The regulations for painting booths

The rules governing the production of paint booths in Italy are part of a wide range of technical standards relating to safety in the design, construction and installation of machines for the application of paint products. These are European standards implemented in Italy thanks to UNI, the Italian Standardization Body.

In particular, we recall the new UNI EN 16985:2019 standard which replaces the previous standards:

• UNI EN 12215:2010 (Painting systems - Painting booths for the application of liquid coating products - Safety requirements);
• UNI EN 12981:2009 (Painting systems - Booths for the application of powder coating products - Safety requirements);
• UNI EN 13355:2009 (Painting systems - Furnace cabins - Safety requirements).

The UNI EN 16985:2019 standard defines all the most relevant hazards (of an electrical, thermal or mechanical nature or caused by failures or malfunctions or even by noise, harmful substances, explosion or fire) that may occur in relation to the painting booths.

To this are added others, of course, but among all it is good to remember what is conventionally known as the ATEX Regulation, described in the Directive of the European Union 2014/34/UE on potentially explosive atmospheres which regulates the equipment used in areas at risk of explosion and imposes the obligation to certify these products.

Compliance with regulations and safety with Tama Aernova

The construction of systems and painting booths in accordance with standards is necessary to ensure full safety for workers, as it is essential to equip the systems with efficient suction and filtering systems for excess dust produced by the painting process, which allow to maintain healthy and clean air.

Tama Aernova designs and manufactures ATEX certified industrial filtration systems and built in compliance with current regulations. A typical filtration system used in this specific sector consists of:

1. cyclone separator ATEX for a first separation of the coarser dust;
2. dry filter (equipped with ATEX components) for the collection of finer particles;
3. ATEX fan.

We remind you that our filter systems allow to recover and reuse the excess dust collected in the first stage by the separating cyclone, thus limiting waste to a minimum. For more information on the painting sector, we suggest the article in our blog "Liquid and powder coatings in the workplace".

In conclusion, in the powder coating sector it is essential to comply with the regulations for painting booths and rely on effective and safe filtration systems that allow each worker to live in optimal conditions within his or her work environment.