Golden Rules of Process Safety for:

Combustible Dusts

Oxidant
Dispersion

Ignition Source
Confinement

Combustible Dust

GR2-Combustible Dust, Jan 2021

Copyright 2021 American Institute of Chemical Engineers
www.aiche.org/ccps
Acknowledgments

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS)
express their appreciation and gratitude to all members of the Golden Rules of Process Safety for Specific
Technologies project subcommittee for their generous efforts in the development and preparation of this
important guideline. CCPS also wishes to thank the subcommittee members’ respective companies for
supporting their involvement during the different phases in this project.

Subcommittee Core Team Members:

Chris Devlin, Chair Celanese

Warren Greenfield CCPS Staff Consultant
Denise Albrecht 3M
Walt Frank CCPS Emeritus
Paul Gathright Ascend Performance Materials
David Greganti Dow
Mike Hazzan AcuTech
Ng Ern Huay Petronas
Louisa Nara CCPS
Cathy Pincus ExxonMobil
Jatin Shah Baker Risk
Scott Wallace Olin

Subcommittee Combustible Dust Team Members:

Walt Frank (Lead) CCPS Emeritus

Chris Devlin Celanese
Warren Greenfield CCPS Staff Consultant

The collective industrial experience and know-how of the subcommittee members make this guideline
especially valuable to those who develop and manage process safety programs and management systems.

Before publication, all CCPS guidelines are subjected to a peer review process. CCPS gratefully
acknowledges the thoughtful comments and suggestions of the peer reviewers. Their work enhanced the
accuracy and clarity of this guideline.

Peer reviewers for the Golden Rules for Combustible Dust:

Thomas Scherpa Dupont

Dave Kirby Baker Risk
Sam Rodgers Honeywell

Although the peer reviewers provided comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse
this guideline and did not review the final manuscript before its release.

Copyright: American Institute of Chemical Engineers

The Center for Chemical Process Safety was established by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers 
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This document is made available for use with no legal obligation or assumptions (i.e. use at your own 
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site for the current release.    https://www.aiche.org/ccps/tools/golden‐rules‐process‐safety 

It is sincerely hoped that the information presented in this document will lead to an even more 
impressive safety record for the entire industry; however, neither the American Institute of Chemical 
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Copyright: American Institute of Chemical Engineers 
 Golden Rules for Combustible Dust

Golden Rule #1: Always recognize and understand the hazardous properties of your dust/ powder
materials.

 Why:
Any particulate solid material that will burn can pose significant dust combustibility hazards.

Combustible dusts can be involved in layer fires, flash fires involving suspended dust clouds,
and explosions. All of these events can damage facilities and equipment and harm personnel.
Initial explosions can suspend additional dust clouds that can lead to large secondary
explosions (Figure 1).
Smoldering combustion within beds of material or within enclosures where insufficient oxygen
is present can lead to products of partial combustion (such as carbon monoxide) which can
ignite and cause a fire or an explosion when oxygen is later provided.
Personnel in facilities handling combustible dusts need to know the hazardous properties of
process materials so they can recognize the hazards and understand their role in guarding against
them.

Knowledge of the hazardous properties, including the toxicity of the materials and their
combustion products is a necessary input for the assessment of hazards and the design of
protections.

Incident History:

On January 29, 2003, an explosion and fire destroyed the West Pharmaceutical Services plant
in Kinston, North Carolina, causing six fatalities, dozens of injuries, and hundreds of job losses.
The facility produced rubber stoppers and other products for medical use. The fuel for the
explosion was a fine plastic powder, which accumulated above a suspended ceiling over a
manufacturing area and ignited. Although the plant had the MSDS warning about the explosive
properties of polyethylene powder, employees had not received any significant training about
combustible dust hazards. If maintenance workers been aware of the catastrophic potential of
this hazard, they could have alerted management to the presence of dangerously large
accumulations above the suspended ceiling [1].
On the evening of October 29, 2003, a series of explosions severely burned two workers
(subsequently one fatality), injured a third, and caused property damage to the Hayes Lemmerz
manufacturing plant in Huntington, Indiana. The Hayes Lemmerz plant manufactured cast
aluminum automotive wheels, and the explosions were fueled by accumulated aluminum dust,
a combustible byproduct of the wheel production process. Hayes did not perform reviews to
address the hazards of aluminum dust. The hazards of aluminum dust were neither identified
nor addressed [2].

Issued 13 January 2021 Page 1 of 28

 Golden Rules for Combustible Dust

Figure 1. Schematic of a secondary explosion after a primary explosion

(Adapted from [3] and [4])

Issued 13 January 2021 Page 2 of 28