How a Cyclone Dust Collector Works

Cyclones are high-efficiency centrifugal particulate separators. This is a Farr FD Cyclone body with hopper below and scroll outlet on top.

Cyclones use centrifugal force to separate particulate out of the airstream. There are no moving parts inside a cyclone body and no filter media. Air and particulate enter the inlet at a high velocity along the inner wall at the top of the cylindrical cyclone body. This starts a spinning path as inertia forces the particulate against the inner wall, resulting in a relatively clean area in the center. This clean air is exhausted through an outlet chamber that starts in the center of the cyclone and exits out the top. As gravity starts pulling the spinning particulate down, the taper of the cyclone body helps keep the spinning (cyclonic) effect in motion until it drops out the bottom of the cyclone body and into a hopper.

Typically, air is pulled through the cyclone from a fan located downstream of the cyclone, but it can be pushed through as well. The cyclone design makes it suitable for extremely high concentrations of particulate. Efficiency increases with larger (coarse) particles. So does a decrease in cyclone diameter. Two smaller cyclones running in parallel have a higher efficiency than one larger cyclone with an equal pressure drop.