A lab-scale study on the humidity conditioning of flue gas for improving fabric filter performance

A centrifugal separator was constructed to examine the effect of flue gas humidity on the adhesional force between fabric and collected dust. A lab-scale fabric filter sampling system (FFSS) was also manufactured by using a piece of flat fabric as a sample of bag material. In addition, an automatic control system for gas humidity was devised and installed in the FFSS, and, then, the following effects were studied: (i) the influence of gas humidity on the adhesional force between fabric and dust particles; (ii) the influence of gas humidity on the performance of fabric filter in terms of pressure drop, ΔP, dust removal efficiency, η, and specific cake resistance, K′₂; (iii) the variations in the composite-performance indices with gas humidity; and (iv) the influence of gas humidity on cleaning of dust-cake in terms of effective residual pressure drop. The main objectives were to determine the minimum and maximum values for the gas humidity range and to find the appropriate conditions for dust cleaning in terms of the critical value of effective residual pressure drop.