Dust-laden gas or air enters the baghouse through hoppers and is directed into the baghouse compartment. The gas is drawn through the bags, either on the inside or the outside depending on cleaning method, and a layer of dust accumulates on the filter media surface until air can no longer move through it. When a sufficient pressure drop (ΔP) occurs, the cleaning process begins. Cleaning can take place while the baghouse is online (filtering) or is offline (in isolation). When the compartment is clean, normal filtering resumes
Most baghouses use long, cylindrical bags (or tubes) made of woven or felted fabric as a filter medium. For applications where there is relatively low dust loading and gas temperatures are 250 °F (121 °C) or less, pleated, nonwoven cartridges are sometimes used as filtering media instead of bags
In reverse pulse-jet baghouses, individual bags are supported by a metal cage (filter cage), which is fastened onto a cell plate at the top of the baghouse. Dirty gas enters from the bottom of the baghouse and flows from outside to inside the bags. The metal cage prevents collapse of the bag.
Bags are cleaned by a short burst of compressed air injected through a common manifold over a row of bags. The compressed air is accelerated by a venturi nozzle mounted at the reverse-jet baghouse top of the bag. This flexing of the bags breaks the dust cake, and the dislodged dust falls into a storage hopper below.