The Effects of Electrospray-based Electrostatic Precipitator for Removing Particles

Respirable suspended particle is one of significant pollutants to impact human's health, especially to those with existing heart or respiratory illness. How to generate a good indoor environment when ambient environment is terrible became a hot issue in China due to the worse outdoor pollution. An electrostatic precipitator and electrospray device with adjust voltage was designed and installed in an air handling unit of air conditioning system in this study. Contaminated air was flow through the electrospray device and electrostatic precipitator in turn. The electrospray sources produce an aerosol of tiny, electrically charged aqueous droplets. Charge was transferred from the droplets onto the particulate matter in the contaminated air stream and the charged particles were then removed by the electrostatic precipitator. The effects of electrospray-based electrostatic precipitator and dry electrostatic precipitator with different voltage and air flow rate were tested in this study. The results indicate that the electrospray-based electrostatic precipitator increased the particle collection efficiency by 19.9% in micron size range compared to dry electrostatic precipitator, which also offer lower water consumption and lower pressure drop through the device.