What Is an Electrostatic Precipitator?
Electrostatic precipitators are so-called filter-like devices that collect fine particles and dust suspended in the air and remove them from the air by using electricity.
This device turns the polluted air in the vicinity into clean air, which is very important for purifying the soot and smoke generated by factories during operations.
Compared to other dust collectors, Electrostatic precipitators are more efficient in collecting suspended particulates and are used at many sites.
Uses of Electrostatic Precipitators
Electrostatic precipitators are used at manufacturing and processing sites that handle fire or generate soot and smoke.
Typical examples are large incinerators used to process waste materials and steel mills.
These plants generate large amounts of smoke (soot) containing substances that are harmful to humans and the environment during the processing and manufacturing processes.
In addition, the air at tunnel excavation sites becomes easily contaminated by particulate matter. Electrostatic precipitators are extremely important to keep the air at these sites clean and safe, even in confined spaces.
Principle of Electrostatic Precipitators
The principle of an Electrostatic precipitator is to remove fine particles and dust from the air or gas to be collected by attracting them to the collecting electrodes by electrical force (Coulomb force).
Electrostatic precipitators have a discharge electrode and a collecting electrode, and applying a high voltage between them produces a corona discharge.
The corona discharge causes the surrounding air to have a negative charge, and these negative ions attach to the fine particles and dust in the air, causing the fine particles to have a negative charge.
These negatively charged particles and dust are attracted to the positively charged collecting electrodes.
Particles and dust collected on the collecting electrodes are removed from the equipment by beating them with a hammering device, brushing with a scraping device (dry type), or washing them out with water or mist spray flushing (wet type).
In addition to Electrostatic precipitators, cyclonic precipitators use centrifugal force and fabric bag filters. The advantage of Electrostatic precipitators is that they have a dust collection efficiency of up to 99.9% and can remove particles as small as submicron size (0.01 micrometer).