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Comparative performance of philic and phobic oil‐mist filters
Author(s) -
Mullins Benjamin J.,
MeadHunter Ryan,
Pitta Renato N.,
Kasper Gerhard,
Heikamp Wolfgang
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
aiche journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 167
eISSN - 1547-5905
pISSN - 0001-1541
DOI - 10.1002/aic.14479
Subject(s) - pressure drop , saturation (graph theory) , filtration (mathematics) , materials science , drop (telecommunication) , filter (signal processing) , porous medium , wetting , composite material , mist , filter press , mechanics , chemical engineering , chromatography , environmental engineering , chemistry , porosity , environmental science , engineering , mechanical engineering , mathematics , statistics , physics , electrical engineering , combinatorics , meteorology
The evolution of pressure drop, drainage rate, saturation, and efficiency of combined philic, and phobic oil mist filters in real‐time are examined. The experiments used four different filter configurations, with a combination of oleophobic and oleophilic fibrous filter media, and one oleophilic only reference. The effect of separating filter materials of differing wettability, with a mesh, was also explored. It was found that inclusion of a mesh between layers promoted increased drainage rates and resulted in a significantly lower pressure drop across the filter. The overall mass‐based filtration efficiency was also slightly higher for the configurations containing the mesh. Conversely, re‐entrainment of droplets from the rear face of the filter was only observed in filter configurations without the central mesh. Filters with oleophobic initial layers did not display a classical “depth filtration” pressure drop curve. The oleophobic media was found to possess lower steady‐state saturation than oleophilic media. Additionally, the steady‐state saturation of the oleophilic filter media, when placed at the rear of the filter, was lower when the central mesh was present. The saturation values were compared with recently published theory. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J , 60: 2976–2984, 2014