Fine oil mist is an aerosol mixture of oil droplets within the air that can look like smoke. These droplets are formed through processes such as, metalworking fluids— cooling fluids and lubricants— meeting fast rotating tools and objects. Such processes can include milling and drilling. The oil mist produced is so small that it gets dispersed into the air where it can cause many issues and malfunctions. The best way to avoid issues and capture oil mist is by using custom designed fiber bed candle filters.
Candle Filters are cylindrical filters composed of layered fiber bed media wrapped around an inner cage and typically surrounded by an outer cage. Filters can be anywhere from 1 ft to 20 feet in length. Each filter can be made to fit the requirements of the system. Dependent on the industrial process oil aerosol mist vary in size and distribution between .1μm to 10μm.As a result, each layer of media is composed of different densities that allow for efficient oil mist collection of any size. The cages that encompass the filter media are also made to fit the system. Cages can be constructed out of polymers, corrosion resistant alloys and carbon steel. The result is a filter that can be customized to best support your system properly.
What fiber bed mist eliminators (also known as fiber bed filters or candle filters) do is collect and capture oil mist in submicron form. This process of collecting and capturing oil mist can reduce many issues caused by oil mist. Sometimes a mist eliminator also known as a demister pad is also incorporated into the mist collection system. These pads are typically at the top of a system and can be composed of many kinds of materials to suit the needs of the system. For example, the pads can be made from Polypropylene or fine fibers or a combination of both. They typically capture larger particles. A different design would be a Candle Filter constructed of fine media combined with coarse media will capture the sub-micron particles and the larger particles as they pass through the filter. The particles will combine and form larger particles which are heavy, and they will fall to the bottom of the filter or collect in the media. Since these particles will be very heavy, they will not be able to drift back into the air.
