Technical Article Writing & Public Relations for the Energy Industry

Improve Baghouse Performance with Custom Filtration Media

As an energy industry marketing firm Krishnan & Associates develops specialized technical and commercial content for our energy industry clients. Here is an example of an article that we wrote and published for our client in the energy industry:

Power | March 2019 | Evonik

Dust collection plays a vital role for safe and efficient power plant operation. There are a number of dust collection options available to plant designers, and baghouses have gained wide acceptance. The baghouse has high collection efficiency that is relatively constant with load and fluctuating fuel properties. Unlike an electrostatic precipitator (ESP), whose performance is dependent on inlet dust burden and fly ash resistivity, a baghouse can tolerate a reasonable increase in gas flow and dust inlet burden for short periods without affecting dust emissions. A key to efficient and long-term baghouse operation is proper selection of the fibers used in the filter media.

Although the fundamentals of baghouse operation are simple, the design of a baghouse is complex. Baghouse designers must carefully evaluate volumetric gas flow and velocity, static pressure drop, and gas-to-cloth ratio in actual cubic feet per minute per square foot of filtration area (acfm/ft2) to achieve 99.9% collection efficiency for flue gas particulates ranging from submicron to several hundred microns in diameter. Fuel combustion products, operating temperature, dust loading, physical features of particles, and the dew point of any condensable in the gas stream all have a role in the fabric material and bag design, especially in coal-fired facilities that produce high-dust flue gas.

Particle capture occurs best on the surface of the filter media of fabric filter units as the gas travels through the filter fabric and is vented to the atmosphere. Exhaust gas is pulled through the filter media, forming a dust deposit on the fabric media's surface. The filter bags are cleaned, either online or offline, when the specified pressure reduction is reached. Particulates trapped on the filter fabric's surface are often separated by a short upstream burst of high-pressure air to remove dust particulates from the filter media's surface. The particles are then collected and disposed of in a hopper located at the bottom of the baghouse enclosure.