Up to 99% remove harmful welding fumes at the source

Things are moving in the right direction. The new generation of welders knows the dangers associated with welding fumes and wants to get and use the right protection for them. Whatever welding process is involved, the best solution is to extract the welding fumes as close to the source as possible. 90 to 99% of the harmful particles are removed this way. Abicor Binzel advises and assists users in this regard. It has not only the right technology in welding guns and extraction units, but also the knowledge and skills to help with training and demonstrations in practice.

"Sometimes you have to see something to believe it." Under that motto, Abicor Binzel, together with the Belgian Institute for Welding Technology and Air Products, organized a seminar in late November on the dangers of welding fumes and how to minimize those risks. This took place at Don Bosco in Sint-Denijs-Westrem (near Ghent). This location was no coincidence, as the sixth and seventh year students were the first to be treated to the program in the morning. 

"We also want to sensitize the future generation of welders about the harmful effects of welding fumes," says Alain Van Kerrebroeck, commercial manager at Abicor Binzel. "You notice that the new generation is more concerned about its health. If you give them the right technology to eliminate the risks, they are happy to use it. And that's a good thing, because every euro you invest in prevention, you don't have to spend on doctor's bills later."

Source extraction best solution

For years, Abicor Binzel has been committed to making it clear to welders that things can be done differently and better. In doing so, it resolutely opts for source extraction. Van Kerrebroeck: "By choosing welding guns with source extraction, depending on the welding position, you remove 90 to 99% of the harmful substances before they can spread in the workplace. Thus, you protect not only the welder himself, but also everyone working around him." 

A concern shared by legislators as well. It sets a MAC value, which tells how many particles are still allowed to be present in the air. "In the Netherlands and Germany that limit has been tighter than ours for years. There you see that PPE and source extraction are already fully established. Here, too, things are increasingly moving in the right direction. Thanks in part to the efforts of education to make young people aware of the dangers."

Comfort for welders

In the past, technology that could safeguard the health of welders often remained unused on the shelf. "Too bulky, too heavy," it sounded about welding guns with source extraction. Nothing could be further from the truth today. 

"Tremendous efforts have been made to improve the ergonomics and user-friendliness of such welding guns. The latest generation of xFUME® welding guns are the cream of the crop, as far as that is concerned. That is also immediately the point of such a demonstration," Van Kerrebroeck continues. "You can literally show what a difference it means to work with or without source extraction. In addition, those present could also experience that the guns are much easier to handle than they sometimes think. Today we hardly get any comments about the weight of our pistols. Of course, they will not guarantee perfect accessibility to the workpiece in every circumstance, but that is equally true of classic welding guns."

With knowledge and skill and advice

In doing so, Abicor Binzel is pursuing a resolutely open course. "Although we believe that our xFUME® extraction units are the perfect complement, our welding guns are equally interchangeable with devices from other brands. Because we believe in the usefulness of source extraction, and want to keep the threshold for the user to invest in it as low as possible. This is also why we at Abicor Binzel attach so much importance to everything that is involved. We support metalworkers with demonstrations in practice, with welding fume measurements, with training, with tips & tricks for users... Everything to help protect the health of welders," Van Kerrebroeck concludes.