Fiber-bed scrubbers

This type of technology is a part of the group of air pollution controls collectively referred to as wet scrubbers. Fiber-bed scrubbers are also known as wetted-filter scrubbers and mist eliminators. The technology is based on the removal of air pollutants by inertial and diffusional interception. 

Fiber-bed scrubbers are used to collect fine or soluble particulate matter or as mist eliminators to collect liquid aerosols, including inorganic (e.g., sulfuric acid mist) and volatile organic compounds. Insoluble or coarse PM will clog the fiber bed with time, and VOCs that are difficult to condense will not be collected efficiently. 

Fiber-bed scrubber collection efficiencies for PM and VOC mists generally range from 70 to greater than 99%, depending 

Fiber-bed scrubbers are used to control aerosol emissions from chemical, plastics, asphalt, sulfuric acid, and surface coating industries. They are also used to control lubricant mist emission from rotating machinery and mists from storage tanks. Fiber-bed scrubbers are also applied downstream of other control devices to eliminate a visible plume. Despite their potential for high collection efficiency, fiber-bed scrubbers have had only limited commercial acceptance for dust collection because of their tendency to become plugged. 

Fiber-bed scrubbers can treat flows from 0.5 to 47 sm3/sec (1,000 to 100,000 scfm). 

---

Fiber-Bed Scrubbers Fibrous-bed structures are sometimes used as gas-liquid contactors, with cocnrrent flow of the gas and hqnid streams. In such contactors, both scrubbing (particle deposition on droplets) and filtration (particle deposition on fibers) may take place. If only mists are to be collected, small fibers may be used, but if solid particles are present, the use of fiber beds is limited by the tendency of the beds to phig. For dnst-cohectiou service, the fiber bed must be composed of coarse fibers and have a high void fraction, so as to minimize the tendency to plug. The fiber bed may be made from metal or... 

Lucas and Porter (U.S. Patent 3,370,401, 1967) developed a fiber-bed scrubber in which the gas and scrubbing liquid flow vertically upward through a fiber bed (Fig. 17-55). The beds tested were composed of knitted structures made from fibers with diameters ranging From 89 to 406 [Lm. Lucas and Porter reported that the fiber-bed scrubber gave substantially higher efficiencies than did venturi-type scrubbers tested with the same dust at the same gas pressure drop. In similar experiments, Semrau (Semrau and Lunn, op. cit.) also found that a fiber-bed contactor made with random-packed steel-wool fibers gave higher efficiencies than an orifice contactor. However, there... 

Waste gas streams are often cooled before entering fiber-bed scrubbers to condense as much of the liquid in the flow as possible and to increase the size of the existing aerosol particles through condensation. A prefilter is generally used to remove larger particles from the gas stream prior to its entering the scrubber. 

Other types of equipment used for scrubbing include plate towers, self-induced spray scrubbers, venturi scrubbers, mechanical scrubbers, and fiber-bed scrubbers. The principle of operation of all these units is, practically, similar. Their operating principles can be consulted in reference textbooks (Green and Perry, 2008). 

---