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Equipment for explosive atmospheres (ATEX) directive

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  Directive

Equipment for explosive atmospheres (ATEX) Directive (2014/34/EU)

  Scope

This Directive shall apply to the following, hereinafter referred to as ‘products’:

  • Equipment and protective systems intended for use in potentially explosive atmospheres;
  • Safety devices, controlling devices and regulating devices intended for use outside potentially explosive atmospheres but required for or contributing to the safe functioning of equipment and protective systems with respect to the risks of explosion;
  • Components intended to be incorporated into equipment and protective systems referred to in point (a).

EXCLUSIONS

This Directive shall not apply to:

  • Medical devices intended for use in a medical environment;
  • Equipment and protective systems where the explosion hazard results exclusively from the presence of explosive substances or unstable chemical substances;
  • Equipment intended for use in domestic and noncommercial environments where potentially explosive atmospheres may only rarely be created, solely as a result of the accidental leakage of fuel gas;
  • Personal protective equipment covered by Council Directive 89/686/EEC of 21 December 1989 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to personal protective equipment (1);
  • Seagoing vessels and mobile offshore units together with equipment on board such vessels or units;
  • Means of transport, i.e. vehicles and their trailers intended solely for transporting passengers by air or by road, rail or water networks, as well as means of transport in so far as such means are designed for transporting goods by air, by public road or rail networks or by water. Vehicles intended for use in a potentially explosive atmosphere shall not be excluded from the scope of this Directive;
  • The equipment covered by point (b) of Article 346(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

DEFINITIONS

For the purposes of this Directive, the following definitions shall apply:

  • ‘Equipment’ means machines, apparatus, fixed or mobile devices, control components and instrumentation thereof and detection or prevention systems which, separately or jointly, are intended for the generation, transfer, storage, measurement, control and conversion of energy and/or the processing of material and which are capable of causing an explosion through their own potential sources of ignition;
  • ‘Protective systems’ means devices other than components of equipment which are intended to halt incipient explosions immediately and/or to limit the effective range of an explosion and which are separately made available on the market for use as autonomous systems;
  • ‘Components’ means any item essential to the safe functioning of equipment and protective systems but with no autonomous function;
  • ‘Explosive atmosphere’ means a mixture with air, under atmospheric conditions, of flammable substances in the form of gases, vapours, mists or dusts in which, after ignition has occurred, combustion spreads to the entire unburned mixture;
  • ‘Potentially explosive atmosphere’ means an atmosphere which could become explosive due to local and operational conditions;

  Description

A potentially explosive atmosphere exists when a mixture of air gases, vapours, mists, or dusts combine in a way that can ignite under certain operating conditions.

Equipment and protective systems intended for use in potentially explosive atmospheres (ATEX) cover a range of products, including those used on fixed offshore platforms, petrochemical plants, mines, and flour mills, amongst others.

The ATEX Directive 2014/34/EU 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. It is aligned with the New Legislative Framework policy, and it is applicable from 20 April 2016, replacing the previous Directive 94/9/EC.

  Harmonised standards

EN 14373:2021+A1:2025 Explosion suppression systems
EN IEC 60079-15:2019 Explosive atmospheres - Part 15: Equipment protection by type of protection "n"
EN 14373:2021+A1:2025
Explosion suppression systems
EN IEC 60079-15:2019
Explosive atmospheres - Part 15: Equipment protection by type of protection "n"

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