Dura-Life™ Filter Bags – Grain Facility Achieves Greater Cost Savings
Case Study
Replacing conventional polyester filter bags with Dura-Life™ filter bags in this grain facility’s baghouse collector resulted in lower pressure drop, resulting in lower fan energy consumption and lower energy costs. Dura-Life™ bags contributed to significant savings in energy usage, filter bag replacement, and labor costs.
Industry: Grain Handling
Problem: Short filter life and excessive energy consumption.
Solution: Donaldson® Torit® Dura-Life™ filter bags proved, in a side-by-side test with conventional polyester filter bags, to be the key to a potential $60,000/year savings!
A large grain handling and oil seed processing facility on the U.S. Gulf Coast had 35 baghouse collectors of various sizes equipped with conventional polyester filter bags. The plant manager’s challenge was to increase filter bag life and reduce overall energy costs.
After researching various filter media, the plant manager chose to install Donaldson® Torit® Dura-Life™ filter bags in one of the baghouse collectors to run a comparison test. Dura-Life™ is a higher-performance filter media made of hydroentangled felt. If the new Dura-Life™ filter bags performed as expected and reduced pressure drop across the filters by 2 inches water gauge, the resulting energy savings would be substantial.
Significant Results with Dura-Life™ Filter Bags
Results of the comparison test were even better than expected. Besides maintaining a lower pressure drop, the Dura-Life™ filter bags also had twice the filter life of the conventional polyester filter bags. When the plant manager calculated everything—labor savings for fewer filter changeouts, longer filter life, lower energy usage, and the increased cost of the filter bags—the payback time was only 118 days.
The plant manager determined the facility could save over $60,000 a year in reduced energy if all the collectors were retrofitted with Dura-Life™ filter bags and the fan speeds were managed. They immediately outfitted half of the baghouses with Dura-Life™ and plan to install Dura-Life™ bags in the remainder of the collectors as the other bags need replacement. He commented, “We are very happy with Dura-Life filter bags!”
| Conventional Filter Bags | Dura-Life™ Filter Bags | |
|---|---|---|
| Airflow | 12,900 | 12,900 |
| Pressure Drop | 5 “wg | 3 “wg |
| Fan Efficiency | 63% | 63% |
| Electrical Efficiency | 90% | 90% |
| Hours per Week | 168 | 168 |
| Weeks per Year | 51 | 51 |
| Cost per KW | $0.07 | $0.07 |
| Yearly Operation Cost | $8,007 | $4,805 |
* Energy saving varied per baghouse because they are different sizes.
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