Deflective Behavior of Charged Particles in a Two-Stage Electrostatic Precipitator

Even if smoke, fumes, mist or dust particles are removed by electrostatic precipitators (ESPs), the occurrence of ozone, which is harmful to human body, has to be severely restricted in the indoor environments of hospitals, offices, and workshops. Therefore, the two-stage ESP generating positive corona at the ionizer is typically used because it creates less ozone than the two-stage ESP generating negative corona at the ionizer. In order to predict the collection performance and the optimal design of the two-stage ESP applied to positive high-voltage, particle concentration is experimentally investigated in this paper. In addition, particle motion within the collector section is also numerically analyzed. The positive corona discharge current of the ionizer is found to be affected by the applied voltage in the collector section but less so by the particle concentration. Particle concentration shows a minimum near the high voltage electrode of the collector section. The minimum value of the collection efficiency is almost proportional to gas velocity. When the collector length decreases, the minimum value of the collection efficiency increases. Charged particles entering the collector region are linearly deflected towards the grounded plate by an electric field. From the above experimental and numerical results, two empirical equations on the concentration ratio and the collection efficiency are derived, and are in good agreement with the experimental data.