NFPA combustible dust standards—2016 update

Every year, destructive and deadly dust‐related fires and explosions affect a wide range of industries around the globe. In the United States alone, 50 combustible dust accidents occurred between 2008 and 2012. To manage the dust‐related fire, flash‐fire, and explosion hazards in industries that use dust collection and handling equipment, or have processes that may generate combustible dust, the NFPA has recently published NFPA 652, Standard on the Fundamentals of Combustible Dust. This article provides an update of the NFPA combustible dust standards. Now that NFPA 652 has been published, this article reviews how the industry and commodity‐specific dust standards (NFPA 664: Prevention of Fires and Explosions in Wood Processing and Woodworking Facilities, NFPA 654: Prevention of Fire and Explosion from the Manufacturing, Processing, and Handling of Combustible Particulate Solids, NFPA 61: Prevention of Fires and Dust Explosions in Agricultural and Food Processing Facilities, NFPA 484: Combustible Metals, and NFPA 655: Standard for Prevention of Sulfur Fires and Explosion) interact with NFPA 652 to provide requirements for the protection of facilities with combustible dusts. An update is provided on the status of the commodity specific standards and how they are evolving to correlate with NFPA 652. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 36: 133–138, 2017