Aerosol Filtration Using Quartz Sand Filter

The cement industry is the major source of cement dust which contains heavy metals like nickel, cobalt, lead, chromium, arsenic and hazardous substances like dioxins and furans. Exposure to these substances can cause health problems to human, animals and vegetation. A continuous pilot scale quartz sand filter was constructed and uses to study the effect of important design parameters (temperature, pre-loaded dust on the collector, diameter of the filter, bed depth, collector size and superficial velocity) on its performance for cleaning of cement dust from air. Initial penetration and initial pressure drop (after 180s) were measured and compared for different variables used in this study. The dirty bed was cleaned by means of reverse air flow when the pressure drop across the filter rises to 20 cmH2O. A macroscopic model describes the filter clogging was used to predict the effluent histories based on initial collection efficiency (η0)exp which was determined from experimental data. A removal efficiency of more than 99% was obtained. The results show that 0.4% of cement dust still adheres on the quartz sand bed after 5 min of cleaning cycle. The presence of 0.4% of preload dust on the quartz sand filter enhanced the efficiency and low initial penetration, moderate initial pressure drop was obtained. At given Empty Bed Contact Time (EBCT), with different filter diameters 30 and 15 cm, a sharp decrease in initial penetration from 0.41-0.03 was obtained respectively. A nonlinear relationship between penetration and temperature was found. The initial penetration can be reduced by using smaller filter diameter, small collector size and collector with pre-load dust with 0.4%. The experiment that operates at a filter diameter of 15 cm and temperature of 25°C represent the minimum penetration among all the experiments.