In recent years, pleated cartridge filters have been widely used in the process of industrial production. However, most of the existing studies are focused on the structure optimization design of filters, and there are few studies on the effects of two important factors, namely, particle size and maximum pressure drop, on the performance of filters. So, in this study, the effects of two factors on the filtration and pulse-jet cleaning performance of pleated cartridge filter were investigated through experiments. For the same maximum pressure drop, both average and average residual pressure drops are reduced with the rise of particle size, and meanwhile both the number of pulse-jet cleaning and the average dust emission concentration decrease, which improves the dust collection efficiency. For the same particle size, both average and average residual pressure drops are reduced with the decrease of maximum pressure, but both the number of pulse-jet cleaning and the average dust emission concentration are increased, which lowers the dust collection efficiency. (C) 2019 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.