Dust collectors are the go-to choice for industrial air quality control. By increasing the safety of your site, protecting the health of your workers, and helping you to maintain regulatory compliance, dust collectors are vital to the success of your business. However, even the best baghouse can’t do it alone – it needs the right filter media.
Choosing the correct filter media for your baghouse is essential to making sure that your dust collection system is operating at peak efficiency and properly removing pollutants from your airstreams. Without the right media, your baghouse could become clogged more quickly or even fail, compromising the quality of your air and putting your operations at risk. Here at Sly, we know that this simply can’t happen.
Selecting the Correct Filter Cloth Types
When it comes to selecting a filter media, there are a few main types of filter cloth types to choose from. These include:
Natural fibers
Woven felts
Non-woven felts
Synthetics
Finding out which bag filter cloth material is best for your baghouse will largely depend on your application. That’s because the performance of your filter bag is directly related to its ability to withstand and operate in the environment that it’s being used in. The biggest considerations are operating temperatures and the characteristics of your dust.
Consider Baghouse Temperature
For temperature, you need to know the continuous operating temperature of your airstream at the inlet of your baghouse. What’s the average temperature? Are there any temperature surges? What’s the frequency and duration of those surges and how hot does it get? The answers to these questions will determine what fibers can be used for the filter media. If you have an ambient operating temperature around 120°F with no surges, then most industrial-grade natural and synthetic fibers would work. However, if you have an operating temperature above 400°F with frequent 500°F surges, then you’ll need a specialty fiber that can handle these higher temperatures without breaking down or compromising baghouse performance, like Teflon or P84 (Polyimide).
With regard to dust, all of the following can affect a filter’s performance:
Dust particle size
Dust chemistry/makeup
How abrasive the dust is
Wet vs. dry particulate
Dust combustibility
That last point is especially important with the September 7, 2020 DFPA 652 deadline quickly approaching to complete your Dust Hazard Analysis. Beyond lowering your baghouse’s efficiency and performance, not having a filter that can handle explosive or combustible dust can be devastating, both from a safety and regulatory standpoint. If you’re dealing with combustible dust, you’ll need a filter that can mitigate the risk of an explosion. Period.
Types of Filter Media
For the other dust considerations, the following table shows the main types of filter media that Sly offers, along with their key features and best-suited operating parameters:
|
Type |
Common Finishes |
Operating Temp. |
Key Features |
|
Cotton |
flame retardant |
180°F |
resistant to flex and flat abrasion, excellent clean-down |
|
Polyester |
singed, glazed, oleophobic |
275°F |
great resistance to chemicals, abrasion, dry heat degradation |
|
Polypropylene |
singed, glazed, SlyTech-01 |
170°F |
high strength, excellent resistance to most acids and alkalis |
|
Nylon |
singed, glazed |
250°F |
good resistance to alkalis, holds up well to organic solvents |
|
Acrylic |
singed, glazed, SlyTech-01 |
275°F |
good acid, heat, and hydrolysis resistance |
|
Aramid* |
singed, glazed, SlyTech-01 |
375°F |
good resistance to alkalis, holds up well to organic solvents |
|
Fiberglass* |
acid resistant, ePTFE membrane |
450°F |
excellent resistance to most acids |
|
P84® |
PTFE membrane, singed, glazed, SlyTech-01 |
500°F |
non-flammable, resistant to flex abrasion |
|
PPS* |
PTFE membrane, singed, glazed, oleophobic |
375°F |
excellent resistance to both acids and alkali, great in applications where emissions standards are tight |
|
Teflon® |
PTFE membrane, glazed |
500°F |
great chemical resistance and abrasion resistance |
*considered high-temperature media, best suited for applications with high-heat operating conditions
Always one to innovate, Sly also offers Sly High Efficiency Felts (SlyHe). With both regular and high-temperature (Aramid) designs, these innovative felts have several advantages over both commodity felts and PTFE membrane laminates, including lower emissions, higher efficiencies, and an extended bag life.
How Sly Can Help
Beyond providing high-quality fabrics and filter media for your dust collector, Sly also offers a number of baghouse analysis services to make sure that you maintain a highly-optimized system. Our particle analysis service allows us to better understand the characteristics of your dust by measuring bulk density and particle size distribution. Then, with our filter bag failure analysis, we can analyze any filters that have failed in the past and combine that with your system’s operating data in order to recommend the best bag type for your specific application.
With the combination of Sly’s superior products and expert knowledge, we’ll help you to get the most out of your air pollution control system, no matter what industry you’re in.