Estimating the service life of activated carbon filters for air purification

Abstract

It is very important to be able to predict the breakthrough time of gas mask filters under real life circumstances. This article describes the use of a very simple predictive equation, the Wheeler-Jonas equation, that yields excellent predictions but only within a very restrictive set of boundary conditions. In order to make this model work in a more realistic environment, it has been gradually adapted to take into account a number of parameters related to this environment: A non-constant inlet concentration, a breather flow, new physical forms of activated carbon, the relative humidity and temperature of the ambient air, chemisorbed gases and mixtures of organic vapours. As (nearly) all of these parameters can be calculated independently of each other, based on data that are either readily available or that can be measured, their influence on the complexity of the model stays low. This makes this combined model both easy to use and powerful in predicting breakthrough times of gas mask filters under real-life conditions.