Effects of some geometric parameters on the electrostatic precipitator efficiency at different operation indexes

Abstract

The performance of electrostatic precipitators (ESPs) was usually obtained under different geometric parameter values and operation indexes. Hence different conclusions were made in the literature and similar improvements may not be obtained for other applications. In this paper the effects of some geometric parameters on the performance of a wire-plate ESP at different operation indexes are evaluated theoretically. The geometric design parameters include discharge wire diameter, wire-to-wire distance, and plate-to-plate spacing. And the operation indexes considered are the electric field strength, the average current density at plates, and the corona power ratio. The results show that the collection efficiency is increased with a decrease in the wire diameter under the same electric field strength. But opposite results are observed under the same average current density at plates or the same corona power ratio applying to the ESP. The optimal wire-to-wire distance and plate-to-plate spacing vary as the electric field strength is changed. On the other hand, high collection efficiencies are always obtained with decreases in the wire-to-wire distance and the plate-to-plate spacing under the same average current density at plates or the same corona power ratio.