2018 Annual meeting

September 23-26, 2018

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Baghouse Basics
Philadelphia, 9/2018
C.J. Vogelsang
 Why
• Budapest meeting I spoke about Filtration
• Since Baghouses are Filters
• Why not speak about them
• Everyone has them & has to live with them
• Sometimes they are a real PAIN & COSTLY
 Purpose of Baghouse

• Objective - capture particulate from the system

• No visible emissions to the atmosphere
 Personal Experience – Not Good

•Part of start up team that had baghouse problem

•24 hr day operation
•Run for 8 -12 hr, Baghouse fill up & shut us down
•Learned more than ever wanted to know
•Took more than week to figure out the real
problem
 Talk about these things
• Types of Baghouses
• Focus on one used mostly by Perlite Producers
• Basics about the designs
• Operational approaches
• Problem areas that often occur
 Types of Baghouses

•Shaker type
• Reverse Air
•Cartridge
•Pulse jet - focus on this one
 Shaker Baghouse
• 2 or more compartment
• Shut one off while other cleans
• Shakes the bags

• Advantage
• Simple design and operation
• Clean without shutting down system
• Disadvantage
• More energy & time to clean
• Small amount of pressure significantly impacts cleaning efficiency
• Large foot print and # of bags
• 2 -2.5:1 Air/Cloth ratio
• Often take sonic horns - cleaning
• Horns 125 to 160 Hz
• Produces 120 – 145 DB sound
pressure
• Over use results in particle
penetration through bags
 Reverse Air Baghouse
• Multiple compartments
• Reverse the air within the chamber
• 1.75-2.5:1 Air/Cloth ratio
• Advantage
• Clean each section without shutting down
• Very gentle cleaning – long bag life
• Good for high temps due to gentle cleaning
• Disadvantage
• Cleaning air has to be clean & dry
• Dust re-entrainment on the bags = more R & M
 Cartridge Baghouse
• Normally expensive – bags – fewer of them
• High temperature
• Designed for specific acid or base
conditions
• Similar Air cloth ratio capacity as pulse jet
~ 4:1 Air minute / Cloth area = pleated so
small – watch can velocity with these
• Rarely every used in Perlite processing
 Pulse Jet Baghouse basics
Clean Air

Dirty Air
 Pulse Jet Baghouse
• One Compartment
• High compressed air blasts to clean bags
• 3 – 4.5: A/C ratio [ Air per minute / area of cloth ]
• Advantages
• Small footprint
• Clean while in operation
• Better cleaning than other 2 BHs
• Longer bag life
• Low pressure drop across the baghouse
 Pulse Jet
• Disadvantage
• Lot of compressed air
• Pressure 80 – 100 psig @ manifold
• Clean air required
• Dry air required
• Process air needs to be DRY
 Personal Pulse Jet Experiences
• Fought baghouse issues for over week
• Knew basics but never got into detail –
till then
• Learned more ever wanted to know
• Share some of those with you – basic
understanding of BH
Want 60 degree angle
Just like a cyclone

– steep walls
– Single outlet
 Recommendations
• Square baghouse – not rectangular
• Round baghouse also good
• 60+ degree slope on walls
• Single discharge device
• – Rotary valve
• – double flapper
• My Problem
• Gradually plugged up
• Shut down, clean out
• Lots of material discharged
• Not discharging
• Or poor collection in
cyclone before BH
• Did not have Delta P over
baghouse to see what was
going on – CHEAPER design
•Auger under Baghouse
•NO Rotary seal valve
•Installed one
•Ran for 8 Hr then
started plugging again
•Not the cause
 Still had build up over time
• Possible problem with too many fines
• Maybe the cyclone wasn’t working right
• Reviewed design of cyclone
• Checked RV under the cyclone before the BH

• Checked the throat piece

• How far down in barrel
• Check for holes in throat piece
• Tested Particle Size of baghouse material – OK
• Still had the problem
Cyclone Design checks – visual

• Rotary Valve
• Located
• Size
• clearance
• RV speed – less than 20 RPM
• Pressure drop across cyclone
• Throat piece
• Check for holes
• Distance in the barrel
 Check out the Baghouse Design

•Physical design of the BH

•Check the CAN velocity
• Had to look up what that was
•Air flow speed in the baghouse
•if BH physically too small,
•particle upward flow too fast
 Example of velocities with 6,000 ACFM
Can
Velocity
2,500 Ft/min 130 ft/min 2,500 Ft/min
762 M/min 40 M/min 762 M/min

To Baghouse
Out of Baghouse
In the Baghouse
Particles settle out
 Can Velocity

Air & Particle velocity in the baghouse

• Target rate much slower than the 2,500 Ft/min is
• the minimum speed for transport
• Need Actual Cubic Feet minute air flow in baghouse
• [ Area of tube sheet minus area of the bottom of the
bags ] = actual area for velocit
 Calculation Example
• Area of baghouse - Square 8 X 8 – inside is 7.65 X 7.75 Ft
= 93.1 Ft2
• Diameter of baghouse socks 4.875 Inch 2 = 0.1296 Ft2
• # of socks – 100
• Open area in the baghouse 12.962 Ft
• Actual air flow – 6,000 FT3 @ 350 F
• Can Velocity = 130 Ft/min - well below the min. of 2,500
Ft/min for transport
 Can Velocity

• Rarely is can velocity a problem

• This is a design criteria
• If have extra long bags and small area, then could be
• This was Not the problem of material hanging up in BH
• Now have a way to check it if have a consistent problem
• Selenoid Sequence
• 1,3,5,7,9,11
• 2,4,6,8,10,12
• 55 milli sec firing
• 30- 45 sec pause between pulses
• DO NOT use Dp for firing
• BH sock suppliers recommend
• Want continued return of fines
• Do NOT want mass of fines
 Selenoid Firing results

•Still got plugging over 8 hours

•Pressure drop across baghouse
continued to build up
• Gradual air pressure losses in
manifold
• large vol / large line
• Added stand-by air compressor
• Still lost pressure over time
• Not enough Pulsing – build up
• Need receiver for air to feed
distribution chamber – Need
– 80 – 100 psig [ 5.5 – 6.9 bar ]
 Why was compressed air dropping
• Not replacing volume fast enough
• Too small line to fill manifold
• Added receiver so that it had excessive volume for
each pulse
• Still had pressure dropping in the receiver over time
 • Added large compressed air
line – quickly replenished vol.
• Receiver that is constantly
being replenished
• Large line to manifold
• Still had the problem - gradual
Dirty air
Large Compressed air line
to large receiver – build volume fast
Cold air bleed – emergency only
– high temperature
Selenoid Control air

• Opens to release air

• Compressed control air
line Pulse air

• brittle
• & cracked - leaking
• Replaced – still stayed Compressed
air from
manifold
open
 Selenoid Efforts
• Checked the selenoids – some stayed open –
constant draining of volume
• 36 selenoids on 1 manifold
• Couldn’t detect which solenoid was staying open
• Could not isolate sections to see about where the
solenoid was staying open
• Created banks of selenoids to isolate areas to see
where the problem was
 Results
•Found a number were staying open
•Removed, cleaned,
•No identifiable problem
• Replaced selenoids
•Still happened, just other selenoids
 Selenoid problem
• Wasn’t Design problem
• Why was it staying open???
• Possible water in the compressed air
• Checked out the drier
• It wasn’t automatically drained
• Sequenced the water purging
 Continued problem
•Still had the problem but it was worse
during night shift
•Checked compressed air to see if oil in the
air – filter
•It got wet and plugged
•Wet - water not oil
•Concluded problem was dryer
 Problem was !
• Wet compressed air – froze the selenoids especially
in the evenings/night
• Control air & bleed air – hard to maintain pressure
in reservoir
• Compressed air for pulsing stayed open
• Drained the compressed air reservoir
• Other selenoids won’t operate
 Recommendations from what I learned

•Square or round Baghouse shape

•60+ degree angle from box to discharge
•Single discharge point
•Monitor Dp across baghouse – help see
problem as develop
• Compressed air 80 – 100 PSIG [ 5.5 – 6.9
bar ] in the manifold before the solenoid
• Monitor pressure in manifold
• Selenoid
• 55 milli seconds duration
• 30 - 45 sec pause between pulses NOT
Dp
• Sequence
• 1,3,5,7,9,11,….
• 2,4,6,8,10,12…..
• R & M - Check the plastic line from solenoid to
the line – crack especially in cold environment –
get tubing that won’t turn brittle & leak
• Enclose selenoids & heat during winter
• DRY air especially in cold environments
• Lastly -
• Any bleed in air for BH temp should be dry and far
from BH - avoid condensation = corrosion
• Baghouses – can’t live with them or without them

• Need to know what each part of system does

• Need regular R & M to keep the BH air flow constant

• Crazy things can get when BH does not operate right

• Hope you never have to experience it

• Know your system
• Know cold weather has serious consequences
• Know wet weather has consequences
• Regularly do R & M on it or expect issues

• Questions ?
 Future discussions:
• I struggle to develop topics to present to this group
• I try to make the items generic enough that they maybe
of interest to a lot of you
• I sure would appreciate input from you as to what
subjects you may want me to consider talking about
next year.
• These take a lot of time so the soon the ideas the better
• I sure would appreciate Any / All input