Filtering hydrocarbon vapors
Filtering hydrocarbon vapors
(OP)
Hi all. I don't know if this is the right forum for this so sorry if it's not.
I am wondering if it is possible to filter gasoline or diesel or fuel oil, etc. vapors out of a stream of air coming from a shop vac.
As you may have guessed, the shopvac is not expolsion-proof/inherently safe but I would like to make it so on the cheap.
The flow will be around 50-100 cfm @ 30 psi max.
I'm assuming the media will involve activated charcoal or similar, but a couple hours of searching has not turned up anything promising.
Any thoughts?
thanks
I am wondering if it is possible to filter gasoline or diesel or fuel oil, etc. vapors out of a stream of air coming from a shop vac.
As you may have guessed, the shopvac is not expolsion-proof/inherently safe but I would like to make it so on the cheap.
The flow will be around 50-100 cfm @ 30 psi max.
I'm assuming the media will involve activated charcoal or similar, but a couple hours of searching has not turned up anything promising.
Any thoughts?
thanks





RE: Filtering hydrocarbon vapors
Do yourself and your family a favour and just keep the ShopVac away from the gasoline, or even the sawdust or kitty litter you used to soak up the gasoline etc. The diesel's much less of a risk due to its flash point, but still not a good idea.
RE: Filtering hydrocarbon vapors
Perhaps I can replace the standard motor with a hazardous location type. I'll have to think about this more.
My hovercraft is full of eels.
RE: Filtering hydrocarbon vapors
What are you after? Collection of the liquids themselves, or collection of sawdust/kitty litter absorbents etc?
If it's the former, extreme caution is required. Static discharge is a big concern- not just the motor arc.
If it's the latter, consider a dust collector blower with a 3-phase TEFC motor. Use METALLIC ducting, and make sure it is completely and continuously grounded. Make sure the dust collector blower has a non-sparking impeller- aluminum is fine, and obviously steel is not! Mount the motor switches in the general purpose (non-hazardous) area or use hazardous duty equipment- Div 2 is fine if you direct the discharge to the outdoors etc.
RE: Filtering hydrocarbon vapors
Still, any vapors exposed to an ignition source is a no-no of course.
Shop vacs run at 5K rpm? I didn't know that.
Might be time for Plan B. :)
Thanks for the advice.
My hovercraft is full of eels.
RE: Filtering hydrocarbon vapors
RE: Filtering hydrocarbon vapors
My hovercraft is full of eels.
RE: Filtering hydrocarbon vapors
He no longer has a garage.