The 0.5mm-sized dust from the pill coater was so plentiful at this major midwestern vitamin maker that the maintenance crew had to change filters in their dust collector every 9 days!   

Although the dust collectors — Donaldson® Torit® Downflo® II (DFT) and Downflo Oval (DFO) models — are self-cleaning (pulse jet), the non-Donaldson filter cartridges the customer had installed were made with a depth-loading media. The purchase price of these commodity filters was low, but the cost of downtime and labour every 9 days was too high!

Now they’ve switched back to Donaldson Torit.

Ultra-Web® fine fibre filter cartridges. Capturing most of the submicron dust on the surface where it can be pulsed off, Ultra-Web technology prevents premature filter clogging.

When used in self-cleaning dust collectors, Ultra-Web filter cartridges are periodically cleaned. The surface loading characteristic means that the collected dust is cleaned off fairly easily and the ∆P across the filters is reduced to acceptable limits.

In this case, the vitamin manufacturer is able to keep ∆P within the operating range of 0.4 and 0.8“ wg.  So far, they’ve gotten 2½ months of life from the Ultra-Web cartridges, without significant ∆P increase.

Filter life increased from 9 days to over 75 days!