the.com/baghouse
A giant vacuum bag that catches smokestack soot so your lungs don't have to.
means An industrial air-pollution control building filled with fabric filter bags that trap dust and particulates from exhaust gas before it's released into the atmosphere.
from Straightforwardly compound: 'bag' plus 'house,' naming the building by what's literally inside it — rows and rows of long fabric filter bags, hung like socks in a closet, that the dirty gas is forced through. The term emerged alongside industrial-scale dust and fume control in the 19th and 20th centuries, as factories and smelters needed a word for the structure housing this filtration array. No hidden trick to it — it's a house for bags, and the bags happen to be saving everyone's lungs.
- how it works
- Fabric filters trap particles like a furnace filter, scaled to a building
- capture rate
- Can remove over 99 percent of airborne particulates
- used by
- Coal plants, cement kilns, grain elevators, steel mills
- maintenance risk
- Dust buildup can trigger explosions if not managed