Written by Paola Piazzi

Powder Coating Booths: What Do EN 16985, ATEX and EN 17348 Require?

Anyone who designs or runs a powder coating line already knows the booth itself is only half the story. What separates a genuinely safe installation from one that quietly exposes operators and production to risk is the extraction and filtration system behind it. Powder coating fills the working environment with airborne particles that, past a certain concentration, can form an explosive atmosphere — and that's exactly where the standard gets specific, with requirements that plenty of installations still don't fully meet.

In this article:

• What do the standards say about powder coating booths, in short?
• What does EN 16985 require for powder coating booths?
• Is air recirculation allowed in powder coating booths?
• What changes with ATEX for extraction systems?
• What does this look like in a real extraction system?
• What are the most common design mistakes?

What do the standards say about powder coating booths, in short?

The reference standard for powder coating installations and booths in Europe is EN 16985, in force since 2019, which replaced EN 12215, EN 12981 and EN 13355. It sets safety requirements for ventilation, air recirculation, and fire and explosion protection. In powder coating, the main hazard is the explosive atmosphere generated by dispersed powder particles — which is why every extraction component installed in a classified zone must carry ATEX certification under Directive 2014/34/EU. Since 2023, this is complemented by EN 17348:2022, which addresses industrial extraction systems handling combustible dust specifically.

What does EN 16985 require for powder coating booths?

Since 2019, EN 16985 has been the technical reference for coating booth safety, including powder application booths — a scope previously covered by EN 12981 and now absorbed into a single standard. Before it, manufacturers had to work across three separate standards, with overlaps and grey areas between booth types. The unified standard simplified that picture, but it also raised the bar on some points, particularly explosion protection.

The standard defines the main hazards linked to coating booths:

• electrical, thermal and mechanical hazards;
• hazards from failure or malfunction of safety devices;
• noise;
• exposure to substances hazardous to health;
• fire and explosion risk, with particular attention to automatic and manual applications.

For each of these areas, the standard doesn't just state a general principle — it sets measurable requirements: minimum air flow rates, ventilation criteria, conditions for using safety devices such as explosion relief valves or fire detection systems. It's this level of technical detail that makes EN 16985 an operational tool rather than a formal reference to cite in a technical file.

One clarification worth making: CE conformity of a booth is the manufacturer's responsibility, and for edge cases — an existing installation certified under the old standards, integration into a larger line — it's worth involving a CE marking specialist. Here we focus on the technical side that concerns whoever is designing the extraction system.

Is air recirculation allowed in powder coating booths?

Yes: unlike liquid coating, powder coating does allow air recirculation, but only under one precise condition. Clause 4.7.1.1 of EN 16985 is explicit about it: for liquid booths, exhaust air must always be discharged outside, avoiding any recirculation of contaminated air; for powder, the recovery filter must instead keep the residual dust concentration in the recirculated air below 10% of the exposure limits.

So for liquid coating, air always goes outside; for powder, recirculation is allowed, but only under that threshold.

One point worth flagging for anyone working across Europe: the standard itself is identical in every CEN country, but the exposure limits used to calculate that 10% are set nationally and can be stricter from one country to another. An installation compliant in one market should always be re-checked against the exposure limits of the destination country.

What changes with ATEX for extraction systems?

The ATEX Directive (2014/34/EU) requires every component installed in a zone classified as a potentially explosive atmosphere to be certified for that specific risk. Combustible powder dispersed in air during the coating process makes the atmosphere inside and downstream of the booth potentially explosive — which is exactly where the directive applies.

In practice, every extraction component located in a classified zone — cyclones, filters, fans, electrical parts — must be ATEX-certified and selected in line with the specific zone classification of the installation. This isn't an optional line item on a spec sheet: it's what determines whether the system can legally be installed and operated in that context.

For combustible dust, zone classification distinguishes three risk levels based on how often and how long an explosive atmosphere can form:

• zones where the dust cloud is present continuously or frequently — typically inside cyclones and filters;
• zones where it's likely to form during normal operation;
• zones where its presence is only occasional or brief.

Every component has to be selected according to the zone it sits in: a fan positioned inside a duct carrying dust-saturated air needs a different protection level than one installed downstream of a filter that has already reduced the concentration.

This zone classification, together with the overall explosion risk assessment, needs to be documented and kept current: it's the foundation the entire system's safety is built on, and it should be revisited whenever process conditions, materials or layout change.

On the extraction system side itself, EN 17348:2022 has been in force since 2023, setting specific technical requirements for industrial extraction systems handling combustible dust atmospheres — a standard that complements EN 16985, which focuses on the booth.

What does this look like in a real extraction system?

Everything above translates, in practice, into an industrial extractor built from two core elements:

• a dry ATEX-rated filter, sized to keep the 10% threshold even under recirculation;
• an ATEX-rated fan, certified for its installation zone.

A cyclone separator can be added as a first stage — typical of high-volume lines, where it reduces the load on the filters. For single-colour lines with lower volumes, cartridge recovery alone, without a cyclone, is more common — a system design choice, not a standard requirement.

Recovering captured powder cuts waste, but it stays fully worthwhile mainly in single-colour production. With frequent colour changes, powder is often discarded to avoid mixing pigments — here the economic advantage sits in changeover speed, not recovery.

We design our extraction and filtration systems for powder coating booths around exactly this balance: airflow, filtration efficiency and ATEX certification need to be sized together, not one at a time. ATEX-certified filter, fan and cyclone alone aren't enough — what's needed is an explosion risk assessment that looks at the system as a whole, not at individual components.

ATEX cartridge filter and cyclone separator: a Tama Aernova powder coating extraction system

What are the most common design mistakes?

From experience with existing installations, the most common mistakes rarely involve the choice of individual components — which today are generally available with correct certifications — but rather integration and ongoing management:

• undersized airflow: a system sized on initial production volumes, with no margin for a later increase in throughput, ends up working outside its intended parameters;
• unscheduled maintenance: a filter losing efficiency without being monitored can quietly push the system out of compliance, well before any visible drop in performance is noticed;
• outdated explosion risk assessment: changes in material, process or layout call for a review of zone classification, which is often postponed or forgotten;
• installations "assembled" from mismatched components: when cyclone, filter and fan come from different suppliers and weren't designed to work together, it becomes hard to clearly assign responsibility for the overall system's compliance.

That's why we manage our systems as an integrated whole, from design through to scheduled maintenance over time — not as a one-off sum of individual parts.

Is your installation actually compliant? Get in touch for a tailored technical consultation.

FAQ

Is air recirculation allowed in powder coating booths? Yes, provided the filter keeps the residual dust concentration in recirculated air below 10% of the exposure limits. Above that threshold, air must be discharged outside.

Why does an extraction system for coating powders need ATEX certification? Because combustible powder dispersed in air creates a potentially explosive atmosphere. Every component installed in a classified zone — cyclone, filter, fan — must be certified for that specific risk.

Is a cyclone separator enough to meet the standard? No. The cyclone is typically the first stage of a more complete system, which also includes fine filtration and ventilation, all sized and certified in line with the standard's requirements and the site's ATEX classification.

How do you choose the right filtration system for a powder booth? It depends on the volumes to be handled, the ATEX classification of the environment, the material recovery target, and whether air needs to be recirculated into the workshop. It's a case-by-case sizing exercise, not a standard solution.

What happens if a filter loses efficiency unnoticed? Residual dust concentration in recirculated air can exceed the threshold allowed by the standard, putting workplace conditions at risk. That's why a well-designed system includes differential pressure sensors that flag filter saturation before it becomes a problem.

Can a system assembled from different suppliers' components comply with EN 16985? Only if the overall integration has been assessed as a single system, with zone classification and explosion risk assessment consistent across the whole installation. ATEX certification of individual components alone isn't enough to guarantee compliance of the assembly.