The Different Types of Industrial Dust Collectors
Industrial dust collectors are an integral part of a facility’s air quality system. These important pieces of equipment help meet safety, occupational health and environmental standards set by regulatory agencies like OSHA and EPA.
Warehouses and factories often use abrasive materials, chemicals and paint to coat products, which can produce hazardous fumes and particles that must be contained.
Baghouse
The industrial dust collector known as the baghouse is a giant, cylindrical structure that uses bags made of various types of fabric to remove, capture, and separate dirt INDUSTRIAL DUST COLLECTOR and particulate matter from the air inside a manufacturing plant. It’s an industry workhorse, and its adaptability makes it useful for many applications.
The baghouse is divided into compartments, each of which is lined with filter bags made of different types of woven or nonwoven fabric. An industrial fan draws air through these bags, causing dirty particulate to settle on the bags’ outside surface. Over time, this creates a cake of dust on the filters. As the dust cake builds up, it restricts the flow of clean air, which triggers a signal in the control system to activate a cleaning mechanism.
There are several different methods for cleaning the filter bags. The most common involves shutting off the airflow and using a mechanical shaking device to dislodge the buildup of dust on the bag. Another option is a continuous cleaning system that stops and starts to clean the bags with a blast of compressed air. This method is usually preferred because it doesn’t require taking the compartments offline.
In either case, the clean air is discharged through a damper that opens as the filter pressure rises and closes when it drops. A variable frequency drive (VFD), which manipulates power to an electrical motor, can also be used to adjust the damper’s opening.
Cartridge
Cartridge is a term used to refer to a cylindrical container of pasteboard, metal, or the like, for holding any charge, such as powder and bullets, or propellant for a rifle, machine gun, or other small arm. In modern firearms, cartridges consist of four components: a case, a projectile, the propellant, and a primer. A cartridge’s case is made from either brass or plastic, while the projectile is usually a metal ball or a cylinder of lead. The cartridges’ primers, which are located at the base of the cartridge head, are ignited by an impact- or electric-sensitive chemical mixture that is placed in a small projection from the case (centerfire); in the case rim (rimfire); or formerly, inside the walls of a small nipple-like bulge on the case base that was shaped like a cup or a lip (teat fire).
In addition to this, we must not forget that the quality of the reusable cartridges is not something to be questioned at present, since they are consumables subjected to intense controls and whose guarantee is established. Furthermore, they offer a price much lower than that of the original cartridges, a plus that fills the purchasing hearts of many users.
Cyclone
Cyclone dust collectors are relatively simple devices that use centrifugal force to separate heavier particles from the air stream. They are often used to treat large volumes of coarse or heavy dust particles such as sawdust, wood chips, metal shavings and granular materials. They can also be used to treat large volume gas streams containing dust particles such as powders or vapors.
The air is drawn into the cyclone via a power fan, creating a vortex separation that causes solid extracted material to hit the wall of the cyclone, decelerate and fall into a catch pot at the bottom of the cyclone. Clean air then exits through a top port. Cyclones are not effective at separating extremely fine particles such as those below 2.5 microns. However, they can help improve performance of dust-filtering screens provided with conveying systems by preventing them from being blinded and clogged by these particles.
Aerodyne Environmental offers several different sizes and configurations of cyclones. They are frequently installed as pre-filters to increase baghouse, cartridge and wet scrubber system efficiencies. They are especially well suited for those facilities that process “tough” dust which is abrasive, hygroscopic, fibrous or wet. They are also a good choice for processes that generate a high volume of coarse or granular particles.
Wet Scrubber
A wet scrubber system works by using a chemical solution to remove contaminants from an airborne gas stream. The scrubbing fluid is usually water, but it can be another liquid such as caustic soda or hydrochloric acid, depending on the type of airborne pollution to be removed. The INDUSTRIAL DUST COLLECTOR scrubbing solution can also be positively or negatively charged to match the charge of certain pollutants.
The scrubbing fluid is sprayed on the dirty gases in the scrubber’s column via spray nozzles or perforated pipes. This forces the gas and the scrubbing liquid into close contact to promote high collection efficiency. The cleaned gas then leaves the scrubber through a mesh or chevron style mist eliminator to remove any entrained droplets.
There are a variety of industrial scrubber options to choose from, so it’s important to determine which one will best suit your specific facility needs. For example, a wet cyclonic scrubber uses coarse water sprays directed radially from the center to cool the scrubbing gas and prevent reentrainment of dust particles. It is often used to control corrosive fumes and gases produced by semiconductor, metal finishing, and chemical industries. The scrubber can be located downstream of baghouses and cartridge filter systems, furnaces, mixers, dryers, or bucket elevators to control fugitive emissions from equipment and processes. A wet scrubber system can also be used as a secondary pollution control device for process equipment that produces acidic emissions and cannot use a baghouse or cartridge system.