Study of the Oil Mist Filtration Performance: Pressure Drop Characteristics and Filter Efficiency Model

Jie Zhang,Zhengwei Long,Wuxuan Pan,Zhuangbo Feng,Congcong Wang

doi:10.4209/aaqr.2016.06.0258

Abstract

ABSTRACTOil mists, which are colloids composed of solid core particles surrounded by oil, are commonly removed from air by fibrous filters. However, unlike the filtration of pure solid or pure liquid particles, mist filtration is not yet fully understood. This study performed a series of experiments to investigate filter performance throughout a clogging process and evaluated the influence of oil content on the variance of pressure drop and filter efficiency. A model was developed for predicting the efficiency of the colloid particles and used to explain how the variance of the oil content changed the efficiency. Results showed that the filter became saturated, showing a constant pressure drop and efficiency, after a relatively short period of fluctuation. The particles with higher oil content used less time to reach the equilibrium state, and had a lower pressure drop and higher efficiency. The amounts of oil coated on the solid cores influenced both the particle diameters and the saturation of filters. Filter efficiency can notably increase with decreasing saturation until saturation was less than 0.5, and the efficiency of particles that were most affected were those with diameters of approximately 30 nm and 500 nm.

Highlights

Oil mists exist in the air of numerous places, such as in machining factories, in areas exposed to automobile exhaust, and in kitchens (Dennekamp et al, 2001; Popovicheva et al, 2014; Zhang et al, 2016)
Filter Pressure Drop and Efficiency of Oil Mist The filter performance can be evaluated from the pressure drop and efficiency
Particle Efficiency for Oil Mist of Different Oil Content This study examined the variations of the filter efficiency for the five cases and found that the shapes of the curves were similar to the efficiency curve in Fig. 2 and that the time for the filter to be saturated coincided with the time for the pressure drop to reach saturation

Summary

Introduction

Oil mists exist in the air of numerous places, such as in machining factories, in areas exposed to automobile exhaust, and in kitchens (Dennekamp et al, 2001; Popovicheva et al, 2014; Zhang et al, 2016). Much research has reported that a high level of exposure to oil mists may cause adverse health effects (Calvert et al, 1998; Hsu et al, 2012; Lee et al, 2015). Whereas filtration for solid particles had been intensively investigated (Thomas et al, 2001; Chen et al, 2015), fewer studies have been conducted on the filtration of oil mist. Because the oil mist filtration often show notable difference in performance to that of the solid particles (Boundy et al, 2000; Tekasakul et al, 2008), understanding the loading behavior of the filer media is necessary

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion