Baghouse Filtration Products The U.S. EPA Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program’s Air Pollution Control Technology (APCT) Center, operated by RTI International under a cooperative agreement with EPA has verified the per-formance of 16 technologies (Table 1) for reducingemissions of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and has ad-ditional verifications in progress.1 These technologies use fabric filters to remove particulate matter (PM) fromstationary emission sources. 

Test Description and Results 

During verification testing, each product underwent the following: 

• A conditioning period of 10,000 rapid pulse clean-ing cycles 

• A recovery period of 30 normal filtration cycles • A six-hour performance test period 

During all three periods, the products were subjected to a continuous and constant dust loading. Table 2 sum-marizes some of the performance data for the individual baghouse filtration products. Readers may view the fullverification reports at http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/std/etv/vt-apc.html under Baghouse Filtration Products for the complete description of the tests and results. 

Baghouses and PM2.5 at a Glance 

Fabric filters, or baghouses, are widely used for controlling PM from a variety of industrial sources, including utility, industrial, and com-mercial/institutional coal and wood boilers,metals and mineral processing facilities, and grain milling. Primary particulate emissions from these industry categories accounted for 13% of the national PM2.5 emissions in 2001.  PM2.5 contributes to serious environmental and public health problems, including premature mortality. 

To help address the public health effects of PM2.5, EPA has established a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for PM2.5. In April 2005, EPA identified 39 areas of the country that exceed the current NAAQS for PM2.5. These areas are required to meet the NAAQS for PM2.5 by no later than April 2010. States are required to prepare State Implemen-tation Plans (SIPs) by April 2008 to describehow these areas will meet the standards. 

Table 1.  Verified Baghouse Filtration Products Technology Name Description 

Air Purator Corporation, Huyglas® 1405MA An expanded polytetrafluoroethylene film applied to a glass felt for use in hot-gas filtration 

Albany International Corporation, PrimatexTM Plus IA A polyethylene terephthalate filtration fabric with a fine fibrous surface layer 

BASF Corporation, AX/BA-14/9-SAXP® 1405MA A Basofil® filter media 

BHA Group, Inc. QG061®A A woven-glass-base fabric with an expanded, microporous polytetrafluoroethylene membrane, thermally laminated to the filtration/dust cake surface 

BHA Group, Inc. QP131®A A polyester needle felt substrate with an expanded, microporous polytetrafluoroethylene mem­brane, thermally laminated to the filtration/dust-cake surface 

BWF America, Inc. Grade 700 MPS Polyester®A A micropore size, high-efficiency, scrim-supported felt fabric BWF America, Inc. Grade 700 MPS Polyester® Felt A micropore size, high-efficiency, scrim-supported felt fabric 

Inspec Fibres 5512BRF®A A scrim-supported needle felt 

Menardi-Criswell 50-504®A A singed microdenier polyester felt 

Polymer Group, Inc. DURAPEXTM PETA A non-scrim-supported 100% polyester, non-woven fabric 

Standard Filter Corporation Capture ® PE16ZU®A A stratified microdenier polyester non-woven product 

Tetratec PTFE Technologies Tetratex® 8005A A polyester scrim-supported needle felt with an expanded polytetrafluoroethylene membrane 

Tetratec PTFE Technologies Tetratex® 6212A A polyester needle felt with an expanded polytetrafluoroethylene membrane 

W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. L4347®A An expanded polytetrafluoroethylene membrane/polyester felt laminate 

W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. L4427®A A membrane/polyester felt laminate W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. L3650® A membrane/fiberglass fabric laminate 

A Verifications for baghouse filtration products are valid up to three years from verification date. As such these verifications have expired. 1The ETV Program operates largely as a public-private partnership through competitive cooperative agreements with non-profit research institutes.  The program provides objective quality-assured data on the performance of commercial-ready technologies.  ETV does not endorse the purchase or sale of any products and services mentioned in this document. 

http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/std/etv/vt-apc.html

Selected Outcomes of Verified Baghouse  Filtration Products 

Verification has increased awareness of baghousefiltration products that could be used to reduce PM2.5 at the state, local, and user level, with the following benefits. 

• 	 California has adopted a rule (Rule 1156) that reduces the frequency of required compliance testing from annually to every five years for cement manufacturing facilities that use the ETV-verified baghouse fabrics. EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards is pre-paring a memorandum to encourage EPA regional offices and other agencies to use theETV protocol and to consider adopting simi-lar regulations. 

• 	 The ETV baghouse filtration protocol has been adopted by ASTM and proposed for adoption by ISO, a worldwide voluntary stan-dards organization. 

ETV also estimates that the ETV-verified bag-house filtration products would reduce PM2.5 emis-sions by 7,600 tons per year, assuming 25% mar-ket penetration (large facilities only) is achieved in the 39 areas of the country that exceed the NAAQS for PM2.5. These PM2.5 reductions would result in up to 68 avoided cases of premature mor-tality per year, with an economic value of up to$450 million per year.  

References 

U.S. EPA, 2006. ETV Case Studies: Demonstrat-ing Program Outcomes, Volume II. EPA/600/R-06/082. September.  (primary source). http://www.epa.gov/etv/pubs/600r6082pv.pdfU.S. EPA ETV, http://www.epa.gov/etv. 

Table 2.  Performance of Verified Baghouse Filtration Products 

TechnologyA Outlet Particle  ConcentrationB 

(g/dscm x 10-6) 

Residual  Pressure Drop  

(cm w.g.) 

Residual Pressure Drop 

Increase (cm w.g.) 

PM2.5 Total Mass 

Membrane Fabrics 

A 50 120 8.5 1.2 

B 5.1 23 7.4 0.79 

C 13 22 4.9 0.42 

D 4.7 11 5.8 0.41 

E 15 23 9.4 1.2 

F 2.0 2.0 6.2 0.56 

G 6.8 38 6.2 0.44 

H <2 <2 2.4 0.18 

Non-membrane Fabrics 

I 32 68 7.0 1.7 

J 19 70 15 7.8 

K 42 68 13 5.3 

L 9.4 19 15 6.0 

M 270 270 11 4.3 

N 10.4 16 6.8 1.1 

O 380 420 12 5.1 

P 20 20 4.1 0.34 A Because the ETV Program does not compare technologies, the perform­ance results shown in this table do not identify the vendor associated with each result and are not in the same order as the list of technologies in Table 1. B The Inlet Particle Concentration is 18.4 ± 3.6 g/dscm (grams per dry standard cubic meter) for this test.  cm w.g. = cm (water gauge)  

Installing a fabric swatch in the test apparatus at ETS Incorporated 

ETV Air Pollution Control  Technology Center 

Michael Kosusko, EPA Project Officer kosusko.mike@epa.gov 

Tel: (919) 541-2734  

Andrew Trenholm, RTI International atrenholm@rti.org Tel: (919) 316-3742 

EPA/600/F-06/019 November 2006 

http://www.epa.gov/etv

mailto:kosusko.mike@epa.gov

mailto:atrenholm@rti.org

http://www.epa.gov/etv/pubs/600r6082pv.pdf