A potentially explosive atmosphere is composed by air mixtures of gases, vapours, mists or dusts, which can ignite under certain operating conditions.
Equipment and protective systems intended for use in potentially explosive atmospheres cover a quite large range of products, including equipment used on fixed offshore platforms, in petrochemical plants, mines, flour mills and other areas where a potentially explosive atmosphere may be present.
The Atex Directive 2014/34/EU can be found here
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32014L0034
and covers equipment and protective systems intended for use in potentially explosive atmospheres. The Directive defines the essential health and saftey requirements and conformity assessment procedures, to be applied before products are placed on the EU market.
The directive applies to both electrical and mechanical equipment and protective systems intended for use in potentially explosive atmospheres.
These include:
- equipment and protective systems for use within potentially explosive atmospheres
- devices for use outside potentially explosive atmospheres, but which are required for, or contribute to the safe functioning of equipment and protective systems located inside such atmospheres
- components relating to the above
The potential for explosive atmospheres can exist in a range of mainly industrial locations such as mines, factories, agricultural silos, and oil and gas platforms, water and other chemical processing environments. There is a wide range of products intended for use in such areas, including control equipment and sensors, transformers, fans, pumps, compressors, fork lift trucks, and lighting.
AtTEX directive is aligned with the new legislative framework policy and it is applicable from April 20th 2016, replacing the previous directive 94/9/EC.
A Guidance document on the ATEX Directive transition from 94/9/EC to 2014/34/EU is available with a list of frequently asked question here:
http://ec.europa.eu/DocsRoom/documents/13132/attachments/1/translations
Promised for a long time, this new ATEX directive has been published together with 8 other directives in the frame of NEW LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK (NLF) ALIGNMENT PACKAGE (Implementation of the Goods Package). It was the subject of a “COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL” for the Alignment of ten technical harmonisation directives to Decision No 768/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 on a common framework for the marketing of products, in Brussels, 21.11.2011 under reference COM(2011) 763 final.
