Three-dimensional simulation of electric field and space charge in the advanced hybrid particulate collector

The advanced hybrid particulate collector (AHPC) is an efficient hybrid system that combines the electrostatic precipitator (ESP) and the bag filter in a unique approach. In this study, an unstructured finite volume method (FVM) is used to compute the three-dimensional distributions of the electric field and the space charge density in an AHPC setup for two cases: without the perforated plate and with the perforated plate. The current–voltage characteristics of the AHPC setup are measured. The current on the bag plate has a mean value 7.82 μA without the perforated plate and 0.08 μA with the perforated plate for the measured voltages. The total currents are used to calculate the charge density at the corona wire according to the Peek's formula. For both cases, the numerical predictions of the current–voltage relations of the plates of the model AHPC agree well with the measurements. When the AHPC has the perforated plate, numerical results show that the electric field and space charge density distributions on the perforated plate have the same number of peaks corresponding to the holes. The electric field on the bag plate surface is lower than that of the top plate and the perforated plate. Though the bag plate has low current, its surface still has high space charge density. When the AHPC has no perforated plate, the electric field is higher than six times and the space charge density is higher than three times that of the case with the perforated plate on the bag plate surface.