Air filtration solutions company Aircure expects to release its 360° air curtain helmet next month to reduce the amount of harmful contaminants to which workers are exposed.

The Airhead is a hard hat that forms a compressed-air barrier between the user and dust or smoke. It is suitable for heavy indus- tries, such as iron and steel ferroalloys manu-facturing, gold and platinum smelting, alu- minium and cement production and under-ground and surface mining.

The Airhead is available in three versions – compressed air supply, a blower with a per-manent electrical supply of between 220 V and 525 V and a blower with a 24 V battery supply.

Aircure owner and product developer Darren Bibby says testing on the product was completed in January and Aircure hopes to begin a mass roll-out to all individuals working in harsh environments once the tooling, trials and costing of the product are completed.

The initial tests revealed that the Airhead significantly reduces respirable dust particles within the breathing zone.

“The lightweight and comfortable Airhead is a personal protective barrier to dust. It fits onto the brim of an existing hard hat and releases cooled air, either by compressor or blower, to a ring fitting,” Bibby explains.

The Airhead comprises a hard hat, a visor, an airhead ring, pipes, fittings, filters and blowers. It can be used by industry and factory workers, winch operators, rock-drill operators and locomotive operators at mines.

Bibby says the three versions of the Airhead are the start of providing clean air to heavy industry workers, adding that Aircure will be in discussions with mines and industry to continue the creation of other versions for other applications.

“The main benefit is to lower exposure to dust and airborne contaminants. A second-ary benefit is the cooling effect, which is one of the reasons users want the Airhead,”