Experimental Study of the Effect of Humidity on Air Filter Material Performance

A large number of application cases show that air filter media are easy to fail under extreme conditions of high humidity, haze, rain and snow, thus seriously affecting the energy efficiency of gas turbines. To study the impact of humidity on the dust-holding performance of filter media, three typical filter media applied for gas turbines with a similar efficiency are selected, and their dust-holding performance is investigated at a humidity of 30%, 60% and 75%, respectively. The results showed that the dust-holding pressure drop curves of three filter media were divided into two phases. With the increase of humidity, the increasing pressure drop rate of three filter media decreased. The pressure drop synthetic fiber, glass fiber composite filter media and the synthetic fiber composite filter media with a sandwich structure were more significantly affected by humidity during the filter cake filtration phase. Under the same conditions, filter media with a sandwich structure had the highest dust-holding capacity, while the electrospun fiber composite filter material had the lowest one. The dustcake formed on the surface of the filter media that consist of a pure synthetic fiber or a small amount of plant fiber is significantly affected by humidity.