Powder Technology 321 (2017) 454–457

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Powder Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/powtec

Short communication

Evaluation of the can velocity effect on a bag filter

Yun-Haeng Joe, Joonmok Shim, Hyun-Seol Park ⁎
Climate Change Research Division, Korea Institute of Energy Research, 152 Gajeong-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-343, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this study, the effects of can velocity on the performance of a pilot-scale bag filter dust collector were
Received 10 April 2017 examined. Test bag filters were made of polyester fabric and had a 156 mm diameter and a 3 m length. The
Received in revised form 4 August 2017 cleaning interval of the pulse-jet cleaning system and the effects of inlet particle concentration with various
Accepted 6 August 2017
can velocities were considered. When the dust collector was operated with insufficient can velocity, an unreason-
Available online 15 August 2017
able increase in the cleaning interval was observed. The cleaning interval decreased with the increased can
Keywords:
velocity. Furthermore, under the unsuitable can velocity condition, the increasing tendencies of the cleaning
Bag filter interval and dust emission by decreased inlet particle concentration deviated from the expected theoretical
Can velocity tendency. Therefore, the appropriate can velocity should be selected in a pilot-scale experiment for improving
Cleaning interval the prediction of actual-scale dust collector performance.
Inlet particle concentration © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Dust emission

1. Introduction inlet concentration of dust particles on the dust collector performance

The bag filter dust collector has been widely used for capturing
dust particles from gas streams. Numerous studies have been
conducted for determining the performance of the bag filter dust
collector using a pilot-scale test bed. In previous tests, the perfor-
mance was investigated with various bag filters and experimental
conditions, including filtration velocity range, material, and inlet
concentration of the test particle (Table 1). However, can velocity
was not considered in these experiments.
Can velocity is the airstream velocity in the passage areas between
the installed bag filters. The detached dust cake from the bag filter
surface by the filter cleaning system should fall out on account of
gravity. Thus, an upper limit of can velocity exists for stable drop-out
of the detached dust (61 m/min for fly ash) [11]. However, if the can
velocity is insufficient, the incoming dust may not reach the installed
bag filters and fall out without filtration. Therefore, the experimental
results obtained under unsuitable can velocity conditions will result in
inaccurate prediction of the dust collector performance. The inaccurate
prediction can cause serious errors when expanding the tested system
to an actual-scale dust collector.
In this study, a performance test of a pilot-scale bag filter dust
collector was performed with consideration of can velocity. The
cleaning interval of the pulse-jet filter cleaning system was measured
with various bag-filter installation numbers, and the effects of the
were investigated with two different can velocity conditions.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Description of the test bag filter dust collector
The pilot-scale bag filter dust collector consisted of a dust feeder,
blower, compartment, pulse-jet filter cleaning system, pressure drop
and flow-rate monitoring system, and an optical particle counter
(OPC, Model 1.189, Grimm) (S1). The dust collector had a square
cross-section of 760 × 660 mm2 and was designed to accommodate
two rows of bags with two bags per row. The round type bag filter
made of polyester fabric and having a 156 mm diameter and 3 m length
was used as test filter. A 40A blow tube having a 10 mm hole was
positioned above the each bag filter for the filter cleaning and
Compressed air (5 kgf/cm2) was injected into the bag filter for 0.1 s
when the pressure drop of the bag filter reached 100 mmH2O. The
pressure and flow-rate data were recorded at 1 s intervals. During
pulse-jet cleaning, they were recorded at 0.1 s intervals. The end of
the dust injection tube was situated in the vertical direction of the
installed bag filters to increase the vertical momentum of the dust
entering the dust collector.
2.2. Experimental procedure

Fly ash from a pilot-scale coal-fired power plant at the Korean

⁎ Corresponding author.
Institute of Energy Research (KIER), Daejeon, Republic of Korea, was
E-mail addresses: YHJoe@kier.re.kr (Y.-H. Joe), jmshim@kier.re.kr (J. Shim), used as the test dust. The particle size distribution of the test dust was
phs@kier.re.kr (H.-S. Park). measured by a particle size analyzer (Mastersizer 2000, Malvern).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.powtec.2017.08.030
0032-5910/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 Y.-H. Joe et al. / Powder Technology 321 (2017) 454–457 455

Table 1
Bag filter properties and experimental conditions in previous works.

Nbaga (ea) Dfa (mm) Lfa (m) Vfa (m/min) Inlet particle material Dpa (μm) Cina (g/m3) Ref.

1 60 0.5 1.8–3 Fly ash 1.7 3.7–6.2 [1]

56 150 3.5 0.46–0.91 Ca-based mixture 8 200 [2]
24 130 1.5 1.7–5 Alumina powder 2.5 4 [3]
6 60 1.8 1.2 Limestone 5 7.2 [4]
6 120 1.8 1.2–2 Limestone 5 4.5–7.3 [5]
24 130 1.5 2.8 Alumina powder 3.1 0.5 [6]
1 207–324 0.57–0.63 1.8–3 Alumina powder 4 5 [7]
3 120 1.8 1.2–2.9 Limestone 5 4.5–7.3 [8]
24 130 1.5 2.8 Wood dust 34 5 [9]
1 150 0.44 1.2 Carbon agglomerate 0.04 5.5 × 10−6b [10]
a
Nbag: number of installed bag filters, Df: bag diameter, Lf: bag length, Vf: filtration velocity, Dp: mass median diameter of the test particle, Cin: test particle inlet concentration.
b
Value represents the concentration number (particles/m3).

Bulk density of the test fly ash was approximately 1200 kg/m3 and size
distribution was 83% b 100 μm, 78% b 75 μm, 68% b 50 μm, and 48% b 25
μm with a 30.2 μm of mode diameter (S2).
Two experiments were conducted. First, the cleaning interval of the
dust collector was measured with various can velocities. In this
experiment, the velocity was controlled by adjusting the number of
installed bag filters from one to four. Second, the effects of inlet particle
concentration on the cleaning interval and PM10 emission (mass
concentration of emitted particulate matter having less than or equal
to 10 μm of diameter) were examined under two respective filtration
velocities (Vf), 2 and 3 m/min. In this experiment, the inlet concentra-
tion was varied from 5 to 50 g/m3. All experiments were conducted
under 20–25 °C of temperature and 40–60% of relative humidity
condition.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Effect of can velocity on the cleaning interval
The can velocity (Vcan) and gravitational settling velocity (Vst) of dust
particles were calculated as follows [12]
Q in
V can ¼
Acollector −Nbag Abag
! 2 ! !2 3
μ 4ρp ρg D3p g
V st ¼ exp4−3:07 þ 0:9935  ln −0:0178  ln
ρg Dp 3μ 2
where Qin is the flow rate of the dust collector, Nbag is the number of
installed bag filters. Acollector and Abag are cross-section areas of the
dust collector and bag filter, respectively. μ is the air viscosity, Dp is the
dust particle diameter, g is the acceleration of gravity, and ρp and ρg
are the densities of the air and dust particle, respectively. Using the
Eqs. (1) and (2), a critical diameter (DC) which is a diameter of the
particles that make Vcan and Vst equal was calculated. Fig. 1 shows the
calculated Vcan and Vst. Vcan increased with an increased Vf and Nbag. In
the single bag installation and 1 m/min of Vf condition, Vcan was
2.76 m/min and DC was 34.1 μm. With the consideration of size
distribution of the test particles (S2), it can be assumed that
approximately 55 wt% of inlet particles dropped out without filtration.
On the other hand 79.1 wt% of the particles reached the bag filter
when Vf and Nbag were 1 m/min and four, respectively, thus, DC was
80.2 μm. The insufficient Vcan caused an immense difference in the
cleaning interval when Vf was 1 m/min (Fig. 1b). The cleaning interval
with a single bag filter was ten times larger than that of the four-bag-
filter installation, and the difference decreased with increased Vf and
Nbag (viz. increasing of Vcan). The stable cleaning intervals were
observed when Vcan was larger than 8.5 m/min, which resulted in
N74 wt% of inlet particles reaching the installed bag filters.
3.2. Effects of can velocity under various inlet particle concentrations
An increase of inlet particle concentration (Cin) leads to an increase
of dust emission and decreased cleaning interval [5]. The effects of
inlet concentration were examined with a single-bag filter installation
condition. Two kinds of Vcan, 5.5 and 8.3 m/min, were controlled by
adjusting Vf as 2.0 and 3.0 m/min. The 8.3 m/min of Vcan was almost
the same as Vcan under the condition of Nbag of two and Vf of
1.5 m/min, which led to a stable cleaning performance, as shown in
Fig. 1. Moreover, two dimensionless parameters—relative cleaning
interval (I∗) and relative PM10 peak emission ( E∗)—were defined for a
quantitative comparison as I∗ = Ii/I50 and E∗ = Ei/E50, respectively,
where I is the average cleaning interval, E is the average peak value of
the PM10 emission observed immediately after pulse-jet cleaning.
Subscripts i and 50 represent the experimental results at each case
and the results at 50 g/m3 of Cin, respectively.
It was determined that I∗ increased with decreased Cin regardless of
Vf; however, the tendency of an increase was more clear at 3.0 m/min
of Vf (Fig. 2a). Theoretically, the pressure drop of the dust cake has a
ð1Þ linear relationship with the amount of deposited dust on the filter
surface [13]. Thus, it can be expected that the value of I∗ will linearly
decrease with an increase of Cin. This linearity was relatively well
4ρp ρg D3p g reflected with 3.0 m/min of Vf (viz. 8.3 m/min of Vcan), whereas it was
5
3μ 2 difficult to identify this relationship with a low Vcan condition. The
ð2Þ values of E∗ with various Cin are shown in Fig. 2b. When Vf was
3.0 m/min E∗ decreased with increasing of Cin. In previous work, it was
reported that the dust emission decreased with a decreased Cin [14].
This tendency was clearly detected in the present study at 3.0 m/min
of the Vf case. However, no significant relationship between Cin and E∗
was observed at 2.0 m/min of Vf case.
4. Conclusion
In this study, the effects of can velocity on the performance test of a
pilot-scale bag-filter dust collector were examined. The insufficient can
velocity led to an unreasonable increase in the cleaning interval of the
pulse-jet cleaning system. Moreover, the effects of inlet particle
concentration on the dust emission and cleaning interval deviated
from the expected theoretical tendency under a low can velocity
condition. The inaccurateness of experimental result was decreased
with increasing of can velocity, and reasonable cleaning interval and
dust emission characteristic were observed when can velocity was
higher than 8.3 m/min. Since the performance test results of the bag
filter dust collector are strongly related with the can velocity, the pilot
scale experiment under insufficient can velocity condition can lead to
456
Fig. 1. (a) Can velocities for different filter bag installations, and (b) filter cleaning intervals
for various filter bag installations.
serious errors when the experimental results are used as data base for
expanding the size of the dust collector. Therefore, when a pilot-scale
experiment is designed, the appropriate can velocity should be selected
with consideration of the test dust characteristics and operating
conditions of the real-scale equipment.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Korean Ministry of Environment
(MOE) under the “Eco-innovation Program” and the National Research
Council of Science & Technology (NST) grant by the Korea government
(MSIP) (No. CRC-15-07-KIER).
Y.-H. Joe et al. / Powder Technology 321 (2017) 454–457
Fig. 2. (a) Relative cleaning interval and (b) relative dust emissions with various inlet
particle concentrations.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at http://dx.
doi.org/10.1016/j.powtec.2017.08.030.
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