Effects of electrohydrodynamic flow and turbulent diffusion on collection efficiency of an electrostatic precipitator with cavity walls

Abstract

The effects of electrohydrodynamic (EHD) flow and turbulent diffusion on the collection efficiency of particles in a model ESP composed of the plates with a cavity were studied through numerical computation. Electric field and ion space charge density in the ESP were calculated by the Poisson equation of electric potential and the current continuity equation of ion space charge. The EHD flow field was solved by the continuity and momentum equations of gas phase, including the electrical body force induced by the movement of ions under the electric field. RNG k-epsilon model was utilized to analyze turbulent flow. Particle concentration distribution was calculated from the convective diffusion equation of particle phase. As the ion space charge increased, the collection efficiency of charged particles increased because the electric potential increased over the entire domain in the ESP. The collection efficiency decreased as the EHD flow became stronger when the electrical migration velocity of charged particles was high. However, the collection efficiency could increase for the stronger EHD flow when the electrical migration velocity of charged particles was relatively lower. Also, the collection efficiency decreased as the turbulent diffusion of particles increased when the electrical migration velocity of particles was high. However, the collection efficiency could increase with the turbulent diffusion when the electrical migration velocity of particles was relatively lower.