Penetration of particle across a newly formulated filter aids material

Abstract

Filter aids is a group of inert materials acting as a ‘barrier’ for protection as well as to allow a uniform air flow passing through a filter cake in a filtration process. In addition, the accumulation of the filter cake deposited on the surface of the filter media helps to increase the performance of filtration. However, some particles do not participate in the formation of the filter cake during cake filtration process. The particles either penetrating through the filter media or clog and block the pores of the filter medium. A high performance filtration requires low dust penetration without excessive pressure drop builds up across the filter media. This paper evaluates on the filtration performance of a newly formulated filter aids material known as PrekotAC which consists of different combination of pre-coating material PrekotTM and activated carbon at material loadings of 0.2 mg/mm² under different air flow rates of 4, 5, and 6 L/min. The PrekotAC was evaluated based on the total particle penetration across its filter cake as a mean of measuring its performance. The study showed that the total particle penetration through the filter media is highly influenced by the air flow rates. It was found that the total particle penetration through PrekotAC10:90 (weight basis of PrekotTM:activated carbon) was the lowest while the highest in the case of PrekotAC 40:60 of the four PrekotAC admixtures. In addition, the total particles penetrating through the filter media was the highest for the highest tested air flow rates of 6 L/min.