Snack food production creates a high density of particulate within the surrounding air.
Food production makes a lot of dust when handling grains. The more the ingredients are handled, blended, mixed and transported, the more particulate is “stirred” up into the air forming a dust cloud into the plant environment. A Pennsylvania based snack food producer had food “dust” and contacted SysTech Design for a solution.
The process of ingredient handling and conveying in food production requires multiple pick-up points for collection of airborne particulate. Silos, hopper bin vents and transfer stations are typically assigned a dust collector for nuisance dust air cleaning. Sometimes the material being conveyed and/or collected is abrasive in nature and can erode standard filter material. Because bag-house dust collectors typically come pre-installed with spun polyester filter bags (sleeved over wire cages), abrasion can become a serious problem.
Extended Filter Bag Life
Our client had bin vents and flour dump hoppers which were ducted to a bag-house dust collector. They were experiencing short bag life and bag wear due to abrasion. Long filter bag life is an important requirement for a dust collector as filters and change out costs can be expensive, not accounting for the production time that might be lost. The project required replacement of 66 filter bags having a filter surface area of 5 square feet per bag or 330 total square feet. SysTech replaced the filters with the Donaldson Ultra-Web- SB pleated filter bag. Based on the pleated design each bag has 24.6 square feet of filter media for a total surface area of 1624 square feet. That is almost a 5 fold increase in surface area.
Another problem occurring as production facilities grow and expand is the purchase and installation of a variety of different dust collectors throughout their facility. In this client’s case there were four different manufacturers. That required stocking various brands/manufacturers of replacement filters as well as problems obtaining more filter bags when necessary.
Pleated Bag Filters
As a supplier of a broad offering of replacement filter media, SysTech addressed the issues with a single solution, Donaldson Torit Pleated Bag Filters. These filters are resistant to abrasion, had the filtration efficiency necessary for the collected particulate, were readily available for retrofitting to other dust collector manufacturers and allowed the client to stock one type of filter from a single supplier! With the additional filter area provided by the pleated design, the air to media ratio was reduced and the life of the filters was extended. Because of the design no cages are needed, thus replacement time and costs are significantly reduced!
Find out how SysTech can alleviate your “leaking filter” frustrations. We’re available at 800-456-9460 to get you the right filters for virtually any type of equipment.
