Capturing hot dust without getting burned
Many bulk solid processes run at temperatures substantially higher than ambient. Examples are blending, cracking, and distilling foods like powdered milk and butter ghee, forming pharmaceutical tablets and coating pills, and producing aluminum powder for chemical and hydrocarbon applications. A big challenge with the dust-laden hot gas exhausted by such a process is controlling the damage it can do to baghouses and filter media in the plant’s dust control system. One conventional way to reduce this damage is to cool the gas before it hits the baghouse, but this requires installing gas-pretreatment equipment and adds significant cost to the process. This article explains how you can collect hot dust at lower cost in these demanding applications by selecting the right baghouse and filter media.
Whether you’re collecting dust from a high-temperature process to meet air quality requirements, maintain product purity standards, or reclaim high-value product, you know how tough the hot dust can be on your baghouse and filters. Heat-related problems with the baghouse can stem from its construction: A rectangular baghouse vessel can distort in response to hot spots and develop seam gaps or cracks, as can a poorly insulated vessel or one with standard gaskets. A common problem with filters in high-temperature applications is premature failure because of thermal degradation or chemical attack.