Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Vacuum cleaner exhaust scrubber

Using water to ‘scrub’ vacuum cleaner exhaust
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Vacuum cleaners have a primary filter (usually a porous bag or a vortex chamber for ‘bagless’ vacuum cleaners) for trapping dead skin, hair, food scraps etc. Vacuum cleaners also have filters to remove the small dust particles. Problem with filters is they eventually get clogged (they should be replaced after 50 hours of use (which should last about 1 year)). But when was the last time you replaced your vacuum cleaner filter?

I reckon it might be possible to replace the standard mesh filter with a water ‘scrubber’. This makes replacing the filtering medium much cheaper/easier and gives the additional satisfied feeling that one gets from *seeing* the nasty dust you have removed from your living environment (by the water discolouration).

The vacuum cleaner exhaust is driven through a device that thoroughly mixes the exhaust with water. As the dirty air is mixed with the gas, the dust in the air ‘attaches to’ the water (since water has interesting properties of being a polar, a good solvent and has high surface tension, and thus giving it it’s well known cleaning properties).

The air that has mixed with the water is thus cleaned and expelled from the vacuum cleaner.

The mixer device could bubble the exhaust through the water (I’m not sure how effective this would be since it would only capture dust on the gas/water bubble interface. Obviously smaller bubbles would be better).

Alternatively the mixer could be a motorized ‘sloshing’ chamber.

Alternatively it could be a vibrating structure (e.g. coarse mesh) that encourages mixing of air/water.

The chamber would need to be cleverly designed with baffles etc. so that water would not leak when the vacuum cleaner is tipped on its side.

xaviergisz, Mar 06 2006

Vacuum Cleaner Cleaner The world needs an attachment for cleaning vacuums. [DesertFox, Mar 07 2006]

Venturi Scrubber(industrial) http://www.tri-mer....turi-scrubbers.html
[jhomrighaus, Mar 07 2006]

[link]






       Baked, google Rainbow vacuum cleaners.
normzone, Mar 06 2006
  

       Admittedly this is similar to a wet/dry vacuum cleaner (such as a 'rainbow' vacuum cleaner). But it is also fairly different in that I'm suggesting simply replacing the fine particle filter with a small water chamber rather than the entire primary filter with a large water bucket. You could think of it as a hybrid wet/dry and dry vacuum cleaners. Since only a small water chamber is needed, it doesn't need to be bulky like a typical wet/dry vacuum. (however it is not as versatile as a wet/dry vacuum cleaner, because it would not be able to vacuum liquids).
xaviergisz, Mar 06 2006
  

       home: vacuum: bong
Texticle, Mar 07 2006
  

       THis is very commonly used technology in Vacuum trucks and incineration exhaust systems In fact there are 5 or six different common technology ways to accomplish this. This is not a new idea at all and is generally not practical for home applications. I say overbaked.
jhomrighaus, Mar 07 2006
  
      
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