Challenges for aerosol filtration
The challenges when it comes to aerosol filtration are as follows:
- Diverse Particle Sizes: One challenge in aerosol filtration is the wide range of particle sizes, ranging from nanometers to micrometers. As a result, filters must possess high selectivity and efficiency to capture particles of various sizes effectively.
- Handling Complexity: Aerosols often come with larger solid or liquid particles (droplets). Filters must not only capture tiny aerosol particles but also effectively handle larger particles to prevent them from entering and affecting filter efficiency.
- Complexity and Uncertainty: Aerosols may contain various chemicals and organic materials, such as bacteria, viruses, cell fragments, dust, and pollen. The composition and concentration of these substances can vary over time, environmental conditions, and sources. Hence, filters must be designed for different aerosol compositions and concentrations to ensure stable and reliable performance.
- Design and Manufacturing Challenges: Designing and manufacturing filters require considerations like material selection, structural design, size, and shape. Additionally, manufacturing filters demands advanced techniques and processes to ensure consistent quality and performance.
- Performance Evaluation and Testing Difficulty: Determining filter performance and validating compliance with standards and specifications may require multiple tests and assessments. Developing and validating reliable testing methods for aerosol filtration is a key challenge due to the complexity and uncertainty of aerosol particles.
Pre-treatment
Before an aerosol enters a filter, a pre-treatment step, such as air pre-treatment or liquid pre-treatment, is often required. This may include the removal of large particulate matter, deposits or other impurities to reduce the burden on the filter and improve filtration efficiency.
Sterilization filtration
When aerosols pass through specially designed sterilization filters, the microorganisms in them, such as bacteria and viruses, are captured by the pores or media of the filter. These filters are usually made of highly efficient microporous membranes or other materials that provide good sterilization.
Tank Vent filtration
When aerosol filtration is used, a Tank Vent filter is usually installed at tank in the step after decontamination filtration. This helps prevent microbial contamination and impurities from entering the system.
Monitoring and validation
Filtered aerosols often require monitoring and validation to ensure that the sterilization filter is achieving the desired sterilization results. This may include microbiological testing or bioburden determination of filtered aerosol samples.
What Sanitek can do in this procedure?
By ensuring the functionality and durability of your equipment, Sanitek’s tailored filtration solutions contribute to long-term cost savings on maintenance and operational expenses.
Sanitek’s market-leading filtration systems specialize in the removal of oil and particles from water streams, addressing environmental regulations or injection well standards. Our innovative offerings encompass oil adsorptive guard filters, high-efficiency coalescers, as well as disposable and washable solid cartridge solutions.
For this specific application, Sanitek designs and manufactures filter cartridges and filter housings. Our Oltek pleated filter cartridge and Oltek string wound filter cartridge stand out as ideal solutions for maintaining the required purity levels in this condition.
