Design of baghouses for fines collection in milk powder plants

The design of pulse-jet baghouses for fines collection has been investigated. Firstly, the key design parameters and recommended values for these baghouse are presented, showing a large variation among sources. A procedure for determining the optimal combination of these parameters has been developed that differs from those found in previous literature by including a hitherto ignored area outside the bag bundle. More specifically, a comparison was made among the recommended air to cloth ratios from four published design guidelines, for the case of milk powder collection. Even here, large variation was found. Finally, a comparison between our industrial experience and these guideline values shows that at least for the dairy industry, the guideline of Lőffler et al. [F. Lőffler, H. Dietrich, W. Flatt, Dust Collection with Bag Filters and Envelope Filters, Wiley, 1988] is the best compromise between high capital costs and operational difficulties.

Graphical abstractPulse-jet baghouse design for dust collection has been reviewed, and compared with industrial practice for milk powder collection. For this case, the design guideline of Lőffler et al. (F. Lőffler, H. Dietrich, and W. Flatt, Dust collection with bag filters and envelope filters, Wiley, 1988.) for air to cloth ratio (filtration velocity) is recommended (Fig. 1).A new design procedure is presented, including the bag-to-wall spacing G (Fig. 2).Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide