Particulate matters filtration by a filter medium with pin holes: modeling and experimental verification

Air filtration systems have difficulty avoiding problems of leakage and breakage of the filter medium, which aggravates the emission of dust particles. In this study, a numerical calculation model is established to study the dust-laden air filtration performance of a filter medium with pin holes. The calculation model is verified using experiments and by comparing the values of the filtration resistance and efficiency. The results demonstrated that, with the existence of leakage, the filtration efficiency decreased with time, decreased with an increase in the leakage ratio, and increased first and then decreased with an improvement in the filter medium accuracy. An extremely high filter medium accuracy was not conducive to improve the filtration efficiency, but it obviously increased the filtration resistance. The larger the leakage ratio, Lr, the smaller the optimal filter accuracy, e(F,opt), and the maximum filtration efficiency, e(T,max). The functional relationships between e(F,opt), e(T,max) and Lr, as well as Q(T), were obtained. With an increase in the leakage ratio, the filtration resistance and its rising rate decreased. The system quality factor decreased with the increase of the leakage ratio and increased with the increase of the filter quality factor. (C) 2021 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.