Energy Saving Effect of High Electric Field on an Electrostatic Precipitator for Air Borne Particle

In this article, an electrostatic precipitators (ESP) with high electric field, which does not use corona discharge, was investigated. The ESP had a parallel plate configuration composed of a high voltage application plate electrode and grounded plate electrode with a gap of 5 mm. The electrode length was between 150 and 450 mm. The air was flowed at the gas velocity between 0.5 and 5 m/s in the ESP by a fan. A voltage up to 12.5 kV was applied to the high voltage application electrode, whereby the electric field intensity of 25 kV/cm was generated between the electrodes. The particle concentration in the air for the particle size between 0.3 and 5 μm was measured to calculate the collection efficiency. The collection efficiency in a conventional two-stage type ESP was also measured, and compared to the result in the ESP with high electric field. As a result, the collection efficiency at the electrode length of 450 mm was 77.6% at 12.5 kV, when the ratio of the input power was lower than 0.33 W/(m
³
/s), in the ESP with high electric field. On the other hand, the collection efficiency in the conventional ESP was 65.6% or 82.0% at the input power of 14.2 W/(m
³
/s) or 24.8 W/(m
³
/s). Therefore, it is revealed that the ESP with high electric field is effective for energy saving.