Thread: Charcoal Filter for Room Type Dust Filter

Originally Posted by bitingmidge

other odours seem to hang about for days.

You??

Al

I work in a smelly environment, I manufacture rubber stamps using a LASER engraver and have to contend with the smell of burnt rubber as well as other materials that go through the machine.

The last stage of our 5 stage filtration system is a charcoal filter. I've been using this system for over 8 years so I now have a little understanding of what does seem to be neutralised (smell wise) and what doesn't.

The first thing I figured out, was that unless the air itself went through the charcoal, it would hold an aroma.

The second thing I came to understand was that charcoal absorbs the unwanted smell and becomes heavier, then, at a certain saturation point, it stops working quite abruptly.

The third thing I noticed was that charcoal itself has a certain aroma, which I wouldn't call flash, compared to real fresh air that is.

My filter holds around 18Kg of charcoal, when the filter weight rises to approximately 19.5Kg the smells seem to just go right through without being retained. In short the charcoal needs replacing.

I am not sure what the Jet setup looks like but a charcoal filter is a charcoal filter. I would reckon that it would work pretty much like my own one.

By the way if you know anyone with one of those little Mercedes Benz A160-A190 cars, check out the airconditioning/air inlet system. Those vehicles run their little airconditioning compressor non-stop, passing all air that is drawn into the cabin through a charcoal filter.

In short charcoal does a very good job of eliminating all sorts of odours we humans find offensive, they do require maintenance though in the form of replacing the charcoal when they become ineffective.

To give you an idea of industrial safety standards cost, the filters I use can be re-charged with fresh charcoal for a cost of $541.20 Inc. GST That obviously purchases about 18Kg of good charcoal that the health department says is correct for my and my employees health. I'm sure the Jet one, going on what you stated of $30.00 is much, much smaller and I wonder whether it would be able to handle the volume of air you are seemingly describing?

Mick.

Thanks Mick,

I made further enquiries and decided against it, but your information was great!

The reason I canned the idea was that the filter was designed to replace the primary dust filter/ I may get one and fiddle with it over the outlet, but you are correct, it isn't a heavy duty one at all.

Funny you should mention the car device though... Mrs Midges' car has a similar filter except it has an automatic pong detector which switches air flow through the filter if like us you choose to have the thing on fresh. It's a very weird thing to experience the smell going away .

Cheers,

P

Originally Posted by bitingmidge

Thanks Mick,

I made further enquiries and decided against it, but your information was great!

The reason I canned the idea was that the filter was designed to replace the primary dust filter/ I may get one and fiddle with it over the outlet, but you are correct, it isn't a heavy duty one at all.

Funny you should mention the car device though... Mrs Midges' car has a similar filter except it has an automatic pong detector which switches air flow through the filter if like us you choose to have the thing on fresh. It's a very weird thing to experience the smell going away .

Cheers,

P

Tsk, what will Rolls Royce come up with next??

Al

Yes, the automobile ones that operate or kick in when they detect an odour which I think is Carbon Monoxide were in expensive cars like BMW's but they are filtering down to the mum & dad cars now. The Mercedes one is on all of the time and the fuel consumption figures for that car are different depending of which country it's advertised in. I believe an airconditioner adds 10% to the fuel consumption generally but these ones, appear by figures I've seen advertised, to only add 7%. This I assume is because it's engineered to be on all of the time and therefore they worked on the efficiency of the compressor setup a bit. We don't own one of those little Mercedes, the missus has a little Hyundai Excel, I ride a motorbike, it came with free air!!!

I wouldn't even think of replacing a primary dust filter with a carbon one. The dust would clog it up in no time. My filter has 5 stages of dust (or particle) filtration before it gets to the charcoal. Even with that, the charcoal gets a coating of fine dust on the surface that is broken up by shaking the charcoal filter a bit to break the surface layer which improves the filtration of smells for a while longer.

Mick.

Originally Posted by ozwinner

Tsk, what will Rolls Royce come up with next??

Al

Hey! I had a lift home in that car... it's not a RR, but it does a good job of getting rid of a fart in a hurry....

The problem with all filtration is that it has a finite life.
Spraying & similar activities produce large volumes of "solvent" laden air. Almost all spray booths concentrate of straining out the lumpy stuff & ensuring that the remaining "solvents" are propelled high into the air to disperse "harmlessly".
If you want to filter that sort of stuff in volume you will need a huge filter & it will need replacing frequently.
There are some benchtop systems designed to deal with small volumes of contaminants but the scale of the task is truly tiny in comparison with even modest spraying.
What will solve your problem is a good solid airflow.
cheers

Originally Posted by Midge

Funny you should mention the car device though... Mrs Midges' car has a similar filter except it has an automatic pong detector which switches air flow through the filter if like us you choose to have the thing on fresh. It's a very weird thing to experience the smell going away.

You can get the carbon filters on newer fords, comes standard on ghia euro fords like the luxury model focus, didnt get one on mine tho.

Hi Mick

Having just read your comments on recharging the 18kg charcoal filter, can you tell me of a good supplier of granulated activated carbon in Australian
Thanks
Greg

In the early days of abalone diving out of Eden ( 1970 ) we had to make your own compressors, a 5horse Honda and 2pot Clisby .To get the worst of the oil out we'd run the air through capped 3" gal pipe packed with Modess and activated charcoal in pantyhose bags. Very high tec, it may explain why there are very few old Ad divers.