Dust Extraction

Negatively pressurised ducts run through the wet section at Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories, drawing dust away from the process and expelling it through 2 chimneys in the roof. Unit 216 anchors the left of the frame, its curved pipe extending toward the centre of the grated floor, with yellow safety railings tracing a path between the machinery. The windows sit bright against the dark brick walls but still carry enough grime to show how thick the dust was even with the extraction running. The floor is open grating, the ductwork running overhead and down into the machines.

The extraction ducts vented through roof chimneys, part of a site that carried a minimum of four steel chimneys supplied under the Mitchell Engineering Group Ltd. of London contract of 1950. The wet section the ducts served was one stage of the only remaining intact assemblage of mid-twentieth-century briquetting machinery in Victoria. Because Morwell brown coal proved unsuitable for briquetting on account of its high alkali and sulphur content, Yallourn coal was railed across the interconnecting line to feed the factories, and ran continuously through them until the 2014 closure. Brett photographed the dust extraction plant on 15 April 2017, in the closed briquette factory before the demolition program began.