Air Filtration for Agriculture & Tobacco

Protect Your Product and Customers 

Maintaining clean air inside facilities helps prevent infectious outbreaks among animals, tainting of farm products, unpleasant odors, and other problems, ultimately avoiding the loss of profits for the farm. Additionally, government regulations limit farm emissions and impose certain qualification regulations on the agriculture industry. Proper air filtration is key to making sure that the particle concentration levels meet the legally mandated standards, ensuring a safe and healthy working environment for both humans and animals alike.

The air inside agricultural and farming facilities can contain:

• Mold, spores, pollen
• Milling dust
• Bacteria and byproducts
• Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) used in processing agricultural raw materials
• Fumigants

Filtration Prevents Cross-Contamination During Production and Storage

Air filtration on a farm is vital in preventing cross-contamination during manufacturing and storage, ensuring consistent and superior quality products and protecting people and process equipment. Cross-contamination can lead to production down time and product loss, both of which impact yield and profitability. It can also lead to spoilage of the final product, bacterial outbreaks, recalls, and potential lawsuits. Having a well-sealed environment is the first step to preventing cross-contamination, and having air-tight filtration is key to maintaining the integrity of the process and safety of the product.

Filtration Protects Against Toxic Fumigants

Tobacco harvesting, storage, drying, and packaging occupies a unique niche in the agricultural production arena.  The types of fumigation, the storage times and limits, and the throughput are exacting for tobacco crops. Methyl bromide is commonly used to fumigate the tobacco product as it is being dried and stored. Since this fumigant is highly toxic, gaseous contaminant remediation is necessary.

Similarly, the growing market for e-cigarettes, vapes, electric hookahs, and related products poses its own challenges related to manufacturing regulations. Manufacturing of these products can include between 60 to 70 compounds delivered via aerosol systems. Large-scale production produces significant levels of gaseous chemicals, such as propylene glycol (PG), TSNAs, aldehydes, VOCs, and phenolic compounds, many of which can lead to upper respiratory irritation from inhalation, allergic reactions, and unsafe emissions. FDA regulations provide safety guidance on production of these products for the protection of employees and consumers.

AAF Flanders’ gas-phase filtration media is ideally suited for remediation of methyl bromide and other specialized fumigants used in the tobacco industry. Additionally, high-efficiency filtration, coupled with antimicrobial treatment, is needed when moving and storing tobacco products.

Optimize Your Filtration and Improve Your Environment

Air filtration, regarding growing and refining of grain and crops, is very important for both particulate and gaseous contaminant remediation. With regard to grains and other agricultural products, particulate filtration is of substantial importance. Air filtration systems in facilities that deal with these products must handle relatively large volumes of air with various sizes of particulates that need to be removed. For applications like wet corn milling, gas-phase filtration can remove contaminants like SO₂ and H₂S that are present, preventing corrosion in control rooms. Because of that, investment into a specialized and quality filter will help reduce maintenance costs as well as energy consumption in the long run

A thorough air filter audit of your HVAC system is the first step that AAF Flanders recommends to provide you with professional guidance and an analysis for cost savings and liability reduction opportunities. By conducting this audit, we document your current state and advise you on how your facility could perform better, helping you save money, save time, and reduce risk. 

Contact your AAF Flanders representative to schedule an audit and find out how the insights from intelligent data tools, including TCO Diagnostic^® and Sensor360^®, can improve operational outcomes and save you time and money.