Aerosol Science 35 (2004) 83 91

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Performance of BE-glass ber media in coalescence ltration

G. Vasudevan, G.G. Chase
Microscale Physiochemical Engineering Center, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325-3096, USA Received 16 June 2003; received in revised form 1 August 2003; accepted 2 August 2003

Abstract Compressed air is used in a variety of applications. For many applications, the air must be cleaned and ltered to remove contaminants. Among all the contaminants, oil mist and other liquid aerosols often pose the greatest challenge. In practice, nonwoven glass ber media e ectively remove these oil droplets. To preserve the structural stability of these coalescing media, a binder that holds the bers together is employed. Most of the organic binders (acrylic or epoxy) have to be applied with an organic solvent. The use of a solvent not only poses a health problem, but also increases processing costs in the form of solvent disposal and recovery costs. This paper describes a use of a novel combination of B and E glass bers that eliminates the organic binder and the solvent. Comparisons are made between this BE-glass media and the traditional media with an acrylic binder. The results indicate that the BE-glass media performs signicantly better than the media with the organic binders both in terms of capture e ciency and quality factor. ? 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Coalescence; Filtration; Filter media; Filter e ciency; Binders for lter media

1. Introduction Compressed air is a versatile, secure and economic utility used in most industries. The contaminants of greatest concern in precision-compressed air systems are water, oil and solids. As the air ows through a distribution system, it is cooled, causing water vapor to condense. Condensed moisture, combined with oil and solid contaminants, forms a sludge that is detrimental to air-operated equipment and instruments. Oil is largely introduced in the compressed air system by the compressor itself. The amount of oil introduced in this fashion varies by the type of compressor used. Today, for high-e ciency oil removal, lters are often composed of glass bers (Colcombe, 1999). Coalescing
Corresponding author. Chemical Engineering, The University of Akron, ASEC 404, Akron 443253906, USA. Tel.: +330-972-7943; fax: +330-972-4845. E-mail address: gchase@uakron.edu (G.G. Chase). 0021-8502/$ - see front matter ? 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0021-8502(03)00389-6

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lters are specically designed to remove sub-micron oil and water droplets from compressed air. The process of coalescence occurs when two or more liquid droplets come into contact with each other with su cient energy to overcome surface tension for the drops to coalesce (Carroll, 1988). As the droplets on the bers coalesce and increase in size, the drag force between the drops and the owing gas, and the gravitational force acting on the drops increase until a critical mass is reached when the drops migrate and drain out of the media (Gillespie & Rideal, 1955). 2. Binders in lter media Polymer binders are added to the lter media to strengthen the media structure. A certain amount of binder is needed to preserve structural integrity and durability. Coalescing lters may be subjected to high-temperatures, high-pressure and high ow rate conditions. The binder material must provide enough structural rigidity to the media to withstand these conditions during its service lifetime but not make the media in exible or susceptible to cracking. Many types of polymers are used as binders. Epoxy, acrylic and phenol formaldehyde resins are some of the common polymers used as binders. Traditional manufacturing processes use volatile organic solvents, such as acetone, to apply the polymer binder on glass bers. Environmental regulations discourage the use of these solvents, as they are considered potentially hazardous. To circumvent this di culty, industries are shifting towards water dispersed polymers that can be used as binders (Floyd, 1997; Noda, 1996; Hutten, 1998). Jodi and Chase (1995) discuss two water-based acrylic polymers, HYCAR J TN589 and CARBOSET 560& (BF Goodrich). They conclude that the binder pickup is less for these binders as compared to the organic solvent method. McConnell, Meyer, Petke, and Haile (1987) discuss polyester adhesives in the form of pellets and powders as binders for nonwovens. More recently, Je ery, Bakis, and Skelton (1995) discuss low-melting polymer bers as binders; the advantage being that the binder material is present at the ber junctions rather than being distributed over the entire media. In this paper, a novel method by which the polymer binder can be eliminated without losing out on the structural stability of the lter media is developed. The method uses two di erent types of glass bers, one having a fusion temperature signicantly lower than the other. The two bers are mixed together and heated to melt the low-melting bers that act as the binder. 3. Filter media preparation Three types of lter media were prepared: (1) B-glass bers and acrylic binder, CARBOSET 560, (2) E-glass bers and acrylic binder, CARBOSET 560, and (3) a mixture of E and B glass bers. 3.1. B-glass acrylic media This lter media consists of only borosilicate glass bers (B-glass bers) having a softening temperature of about 650 C. B-glass bers have been used in industrial applications for many years

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(Bowes, 1939). The diameters of the bers range from 2 to 6 m. The lter medium made of B-glass bers with acrylic binder is formed by vacuum ltration. Three grams of B-glass bers dispersed in 6 l of water (pH adjusted to 2.75) is mixed with 12 ml of the acrylic water dispersed binder having a concentration of 27 percent of acrylic by volume, and set aside for 24 h. After reaching equilibrium with the binder, the entire slurry is stirred and vacuum ltered through a mold to form the lter media. The lter media are formed as 6 cm diameter disks. The disks have about 0:386 g of acrylic in them (Mehta, Rangarajan, & Chase, 2000). This wet lter media is heated in an oven at about 150 C to dry and cure (harden) the binder. These circular disks are tested in the lter experiments. 3.2. E-glass acrylic media The same procedure is used to form the sample disks as described above, replacing the B-glass bers with E-glass bers. The E-glass bers are a limealuminaborosilicate glass designed for electrical applications and have a softening temperature of about 850 C (Lubin, 1969). The E-glass ber is a nonalkaline glass thus making it more resistant to acid and humidity (Schoenlaub, 1943). 3.3. E-glass+B-glass lter media This lter media is prepared in the same way as mentioned above except that the lter media matrix is a mixture of B-glass bers and E-glass bers in the ratio 1:3 by weight. The only di erence here comes in the heating stage when the wet lter media is heated to 700 C to melt the B-glass bers. The molten B-glass bers act as the binder for the rest of the E-glass bers. The lter media is cooled and cut to a thickness of 1 cm. The cut media are used in the tests. 4. Media characterization 4.1. Porosity The porosities of all the three media were measured using a pycnometer. The porosities ranged from 0.90 to 0.95. There was no signicant di erence in the initial porosity of the three media. 4.2. Hardness Hardness is a measure of the amount of binder present in the media. A durometer is the international standard for the hardness measurement of rubber, plastic and other non-metallic materials. Durometers are described in the American Society for Testing and Material specication ASTM D2240, which is the recognized specication for the instrument and test procedures. In our case, the hardness of the two acrylic media increased with an increase in the CARBOSET 560& concentration. For the BE-glass media the hardness increased with the percentage of B-glass bers in the media. However, as the percentage of the B-glass bers increased, the size of the nal cured media decreased due to the shrinking of the B-glass bers. Fig. 1 shows the reduction in the lter media

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Fig. 1. Reduction in medium size with increasing B-glass ber mass percentage. The scale at the bottom of the samples shows centimeters and inches to give an indication of the size of the samples.

Fig. 2. (a) SEM of B-glass acrylic media; (b) SEM of BE-glass media that connect the bers.

due to an increase in the percentage of B-glass bers. Thus an optimum percentage of B-glass bers (25 % B-glass bers) was determined by trial that provided the necessary hardness without signicant shrinking of the media. 4.3. Microscopic observation of the media Fig. 2(a) shows the SEM image of a B-glass-acrylic media. As can be seen in the case of the acrylic media, the cured binder may coat some of the bers and can also form lms that span

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Fig. 3. Schematic of lter media test apparatus.

between bers at the intersection of the bers. Fig. 2(b) shows the SEM image of a BE-glass media. In this case, it can be seen that the fused B-glass bers form spheroidal particles that connect the bers together. When a B-glass ber melts, the surface tension forces tend to make the melt form a spherical particle. This particle attaches to the surfaces of the E-glass bers. If the viscosity is low enough, the spherical particle may move on the surface of the E-glass ber until it encounters a junction where it stops due to a reduction in surface energy (Eriksson, Ljunggre, & Odberg, 1992). Thus, in the case of BE-glass media, the binder (B-glass particles) sits on the surface of E-glass bers in the form of spheres and not as a lm as in the case of the acrylic binder media.

5. Experimental setup and coalescence media testing Fig. 3 is schematic of the coalescence test apparatus. The experimental setup is designed to operate at conditions encountered in industrial applications. The compressed air pressure is at 60 120 psig and the temperature is between 40 C and 80 C. In this work, all the experiments were run at 40 C. The apparatus has a dryer to remove moisture from the incoming air. Pressure regulator valves control the air pressure across the Laskin nozzle to produce the aerosol drops. The heater controls the air temperature entering the media holder. The Laskin nozzle produces droplets of propylene glycol with mean diameter of 0:2 m and standard deviation of 0:074 m. The ow rate is monitored using a rotameter and the pressure drop across the media is measured using a pressure transducer. The oil concentration in the outlet air stream is measured using a photometer that is calibrated gravimetrically to the outlet stream particles.

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Table 1 Media properties before experimental run (initial) and after experimental run (nal) Type of lter media Porosity Initial B-Glass acrylic E-Glass acrylic BE-glass
a

Weight (g) Final 0.843 0.826 0.762 Initial 3.859 3.798 4.198 Final 6.794 7.227 8.125

Durometer hardnessa reading Initial 49.9 48.9 34.6 Final 27.4 25.9 32.0

0.945 0.958 0.943

Durometer type A, 15 s, per ASTM D2240.

6. Comparison of media performance The performances of media are compared by considering a balance in behavior with regard to the nal outlet concentration and the nal pressure drop, in terms of the quality factor (QF) dened by (Brown, 1993) QF = ln(cout =cin )= P; where cout is the downstream concentration of oil, cin is the inlet concentration of oil and pressure drop across the lter medium. 7. Results and discussion Table 1 lists the di erent lter media properties before and after the experimental run. The saturation of the BE-glass media is higher than that of the B-glass-acrylic media and the E-glass-acrylic media. Since more oil is retained in the BE-glass media, subsequent coalescence can occur faster than the other media, however the nal pressure drop is greater. The hardness of the media containing the acrylic binder reduces by half; however the hardness of the BE-glass media does not signicantly change. Thus the BE-glass media should have a higher service life than that of the B-glass-acrylic and E-glass-acrylic media. This decrease in hardness is suspected to be caused by a reaction between the acrylic binder and the oil. The B-glass-acrylic and the E-glass-acrylic media start out rigid and in exible, which may be a disadvantage in manufacturing. After exposure to the oil for about 12 h these media become soft and pliable. The BE-glass media on the other hand are rm but exible and do not lose their hardness upon exposure to the oil, which is an advantage. Fig. 4 shows the variation of the exit air concentration with time for the three media. The standard deviations are represented in the form of error bars. The scale gives an idea of the performance of the BE-glass media compared to the other two media. From the plot it can be inferred that at steady state the exit air concentration in the case of the BE-glass media is about 1/20 of the exit air concentration of the other two media indicating a better capturing e ciency. Fig. 5 shows the variation of the average pressure drop across the media versus time for the di erent media. The initial and nal pressure drops for the B-glass-acrylic media are the least. This is followed by the BE-glass media and by the E-glass-acrylic media. The peak pressure drop for the B-glass-acrylic media was also found to be lower than the peak pressure drop for the other two (1) P is the

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Photometer Reading Vs Time Exit Air Concentration (ppm) 100 10 1 0 0.1 0.01 Time (min) 50 100 150 200 B-glass-acrylicmedia E-glass-acrylic media B-E-glass media

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Fig. 4. Average exit air concentration versus time for di erent media.

Pressure Drop Vs Time 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 0 50 100 Time (min) 150

B-glass-acrylic media E-glass-acrylic media B-E-glass media

Pressure Drop (KPa)

200

Fig. 5. Average Pressure drop versus time for di erent media.

media. The steady state pressure is greater for BE-glass media compared to B-glass-acrylic media. This can be attributed to the higher holdup of oil in the BE-glass media. Fig. 6 shows the variation of quality factor versus time for the three media. Quality factor is dened by Eq. (1). The quality factor is a parameter that can be used to compare the e ective performance of a lter as it is ideally independent of the thickness of the media for ltration of solid aerosols. For capture and drainage of liquid aerosols, the quality factor indicates a relative performance though it may not be independent of thickness. Although there was no big improvement in the quality factor, BE-glass has a higher capture e ciency compared to the media containing the acrylic binder. 8. Conclusion A novel method to make a BE-glass media has been explored in this paper. The performance of this media is compared to that of B-glass media and E-glass media with acrylic binder. Although the performance of the three media was about the same with regard to the quality factor, the exit air

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Quality Factor Vs Time 3.5 3 QualityFactor(1/KPa) 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0 50 100 Time (min) 150
200

B-glass-acrylicmedia E-glass-acrylic media B-E-glass media

Fig. 6. Average quality factor versus time for di erent media.

concentration is signicantly lower for the BE-glass media compared to the B-glass-acrylic media. Another advantage of the BE-glass media is its exibility and its ability to maintain its hardness over longer periods of time after exposure to oil. The BE-glass media provides the lter industries an option in making lter media that do not require solvents to apply binder. Acknowledgements This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9900949 and the Coalescence Research Consortium (Ahlstrom Paper Group, Parker Hannin, Fleetguard, Hollingsworth and Vose, Donaldson Company; and SPX Air Treatment). References
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Jodi, W., & Chase, G. G. (1995). Water-dispersed polymer adhesion on glass bers. Advances in ltration and separation technology, vol. 9 (pp. 26). Northport, Alabama: American Filtration and Separations Society. Lubin, G. (1969). Handbook of berglass and advanced plastics composites. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. McConnell, R. L., Meyer, M. F., Petke, F. D., & Haile, W. (1987). Polyester adhesives in nonwovens and textile applications. Journal of Coated Fabrics, 16(1), 199. Mehta, K., Rangarajan, S., & Chase, G. G. (2000). Coalescence lter media performance testing-e ects of process parameters. Fluid/Particle Separation Journal, 13(2), 129. Noda, T. (1996). Manufacturing of molded lter media. Patent no. JP 8141556. Schoenlaub, R. A. (1943). Glass composition. Patent no. 2,334,961.