Suction from Indirect Rotating Drying Oven Copper Ore Concentrate

Application

Suction from indirect rotating drying oven copper ore concentrate. Pulse-cleaned filter from Flakt (90 bags).

Optimization Potential

Installed two identical drying ovens and two identical pulse-cleaned filters, one equipped with conventional Dralon® T bags, one with GORE® membrane/ NOMEX® felt filter bags to evaluate filter capacity and separation efficiency. Conventional bags were replaced five times in seven years.

Solution

Equip one filter with GORE® membrane/Nomex® felt filter bags to substantiate how much more effective GORE® membrane/Nomex® felt filter bags are than conventional filter material.

Results

After approximately two and one-half years of operation, the pressure drop is roughly 50% of the conventional bags, at a cleaning frequency of roughly 50%. Improvement has been utilized to increase production capacity. Dust emission measurements have also shown that GORE® membrane/Nomex® felt filter bags are much more effective, yielding dust emissions of roughly 1 mg/Nm³ as compared to values between 15 and 30 mg/Nm³ for conventional bags. Conventional bags in the other installation have been replaced with GORE® membrane/Nomex® felt filter bags. GORE® membrane filter bags are still operating after seven years at 8,000 h/year.