Efect of gas composition

For combustion process applications, the carrier gas typically comprises nitrogen,
carbon dioxide, moisture and oxygen, together with trace quantities of
other gases, e.g. sulphur dioxide, sulphur trioxide, nitrogen oxides, etc., dependent
on the process feedstock. Other processes, such as metallurgical smelters, can
have high concentrations of sulphur dioxide, while gases from reduction type
processes, for example, cleaning of blast furnace or coke oven gases, have only
trace quantities of oxygen, <1 per cent, but can contain hydrogen sulphide,
cyanic derivatives and other compounds.
Corona inception, as indicated, occurs when the electric feld adjacent to the
discharge element reaches a certain gradient irrespective of whether positive or
negative energisation is used. The actual corona current fow depends on the
energising voltage and whether the gases have electropositive or electronegative
characteristics. Gases in the right hand area of the Periodic Table, such as chlorine,
oxygen, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen fuoride, etc., are termed electronegative
gases, which, being defcient in electrons in the outer shell, have a great afnity
for electron attachment to produce negative ions. Other gases such as nitrogen,
hydrogen, argon, etc., are termed electropositive gases and have little afnity for
electron attachment and consequently do not produce negative electrons in any
great quantity.
Although the foregoing is true for pure electropositive gases, the presence
of small quantities of electronegative gases, e.g. oxygen or sulphur dioxide, as
typically met in practice, signifcantly modifes the corona characteristics of the
mixture, as indicated in Figure 3.1.
From these curves, in the case of pure sulphur dioxide, the number of ions
produced is small and consequently results in little corona current fow even up
to the breakdown voltage of the system. On the other hand, small quantities of
electronegative gases, e.g. oxygen or sulphur dioxide, modify the corona
characteristics,
enabling the system adequately to charge and hence precipitate any
entrained particles.
Because of the importance of these small quantities of electronegative gases
on the corona characteristics, it is important that a complete and full gas analysis
is available for any application to assess if particle removal by electrostatic
precipitation is feasible. For example, it is not economic or practicable to use
electrostatic precipitation for fnal cleaning of nitrogen or argon gases produced
from bulk manufacturing plants.

3.2 Impact of gas temperature

The gas temperature plays several important roles in the design and operation of
an electrostatic precipitator. The frst is that temperature can dictate the
materials of construction; for example, for temperatures up to some 400 C,
normal carbon steel is generally used for both containment casing and internal
components. For temperatures around 500 C, some form of stainless or alloyed steel
would be used, while for higher temperatures, one would consider high
nickel alloys for construction purposes. For the larger installations a further
difculty facing the precipitator designer is that of diferential thermal expansion.
This needs to be taken into account, particularly for plants designed to
operate at elevated temperatures to avoid distortion leading to degraded
precipitator performance.
At lower temperatures, particularly for operation below the acid or water dew
point temperature, corrosion risks have to be fully assessed in the design and
construction of any precipitator in order to obtain a reasonable cost efective life
span. For example, for sulphuric acid mist collection, the early plants were
constructed using lead coated steel components or harder antimonial lead for
discharge and collector electrodes. More recent acid mist plants have used
reinforced glass fbre components for both the containment vessel and collectors,
the collectors having some form of conductive coating to discharge the
deposited particles, while titanium or high nickel alloys have been used for the
discharge electrodes. On other plants subject to corrosion attack, earlier designs
used acid resistant brick lined reinforced concrete for the casings, with wetted
wooden collectors and titanium or high nickel alloys for the discharge electrodes.
For the cleaning of blast furnace and coke oven gases basically devoid of
oxygen, normal but thicker carbon steel components have given an acceptable
life span usually greater than 20 years.
With respect to designing for the operational temperature, one is seeking to
choose a material that will produce a satisfactory life at an economic cost. With
wet electrostatic precipitators (WESPs), which employ water/liquor washing to
remove the precipitated deposits, one must also be aware of sulphur reducing
bacteria (SRBs), which may be present in the recycle liquor and unless checked
by a suitable biocide will attack the iron molecules in any steel work resulting in
an accelerated corrosion rate.
The gas volume being treated by the precipitator is temperature dependent
according to Charles’s law, and since the performance of a precipitator is related
to the contact time, any increase above the design temperature will increase the
gas volume and therefore reduce the overall collection efciency.
Another impact of temperature that afects the electrical operation and hence
performance of the precipitator, as previously indicated, is that as the temperature
increases, the kinetic energy of the gas molecules rises, which increases the
corona current fow but at the expense of a reducing breakdown voltage. These
efects are illustrated in Figure 3.2, which must be considered when designing
the discharge electrode system for precipitators; particularly those used in high
temperature applications.
For a number of applications it is necessary to reduce the temperature by
moisture injection into the waste gas stream in order to reduce the fy ash electrical
resistivity to a level where reverse ionisation efects are mitigated. The
efect of the moisture content of the waste gas on electrical resitivity can be
appreciated with reference to Figure 3.3, which, while specifcally relating to a
coal fy ash, indicates that increasing the moisture content of the gas from

5 per cent to 20 per cent reduces the electrical resistivity by two orders of
magnitude.
In view of the infuence of the temperature upon particle electrical resistivity and
other associated temperature efects, which impact on the precipitator sizing and
performance, it is imperative that the operational temperature range is fully and
carefully considered for any application.
The efect of gas temperature and the electrical resistivity of the particulates upon
the electrical operating conditions will be examined in much greater detail later in the
chapter.

3.3 Infuence of gas pressure

In general terms, the pressure of the entraining gas dictates the design and operation
of the precipitator. For high pressure applications the casing can be cylindrical or
ovoid in cross section, not only to contain the gases but also to withstand the
operational pressure without serious distortion such as to impact on the internal
alignment of the electrode system. The high pressure within the precipitator casing
also complicates the removal of the collected material from
the plant, because normal hopper evacuation systems, without adequate pressure
reducing facilities, would allow the gases to escape into the surroundings and create
a hazardous condition adjacent to the plant. The efect of pressure on electrical
operating conditions is illustrated in
Figure 3.4, which indicates that at high temperature, high pressure assists in
signifcantly raising the operational breakdown voltage. This high pressure, high

Figure 3.4The efect of temperature and pressure on electrical breakdown voltages

temperature efect enables the electrostatic precipitator to be used for cleaning the
gases ahead of gas turbines employed in integrated combined cycle gasifcation
plants.
Converse efects arise with operation at reduced pressure, as also indicated in
Figure 3.4, which impacts on the gas density such that additional corona current
fows between the electrode system but at the expense of a reduction in breakdown
voltage. Again the casing and dedusting system must be designed to withstand the
operational negative pressure since any inleakage into the plant increases the gas
volume being treated and being air, may cause the material to fre, or possibly result
in an explosive gas/air mixture being formed. Gas viscosity and density
Both the viscosity and density are related to the composition and temperature of
the entraining gas. As the temperature rises, the viscosity increases, retarding the
migration of the ions and charged particles; this retardation, however, is somewhat
mitigated by the reduction in gas density. The efect, however, must be
considered in the design stage, since the change in performance, etc., is indicated
by Equation (2.14).
3.5 Impact of gas fow rate and gas velocity
It will be appreciated from Equations (2.16) and (2.17) that the sizing, and
consequently the performance, of an electrostatic precipitator is dependent on
the gas fow rate and hence contact time. For a given plate area A and a certain
efective migration velocity ω, the efciency is related to the gas volume V. Any
change in gas fow rate efects the efciency in order to maintain the equation
balance. A typical efciency/SCA (contact time) relationship is illustrated in
Figure 3.5, for a range of typical modifed migration velocities (ωk) met in
practice.
Although the above relationships hold for normal variations in gas fow rate,
for dusts exhibiting poor cohesive properties, re-entrainment and scouring of
the collected dust can occur by operating at too high a gas velocity, which
detracts from the theoretical efciency. At low gas velocities, two efects arise
that reduce efciency. The frst is that at the lower velocity the precipitation rate
(mass/unit area of collector) increases at the inlet to the feld and this can upset
the electrical feld distribution further downstream, which signifcantly impacts
on the overall efciency. Secondly, for a precipitator designed for higher fow
rates, the rapping frequency and intensity will not necessarily be correct for the
lower velocity and hence serious re-entrainment could occur because of the
redistribution of the deposited dust masses.
The curve in Figure 3.6 indicates how the theoretical efciency based on a
constant modifed migration velocity (ωk), changes with gas velocity through
a precipitator designed with a nominal operating velocity of 1.4 m s −1. At low, but
decreasing velocities, the collection efciency tends to rise to a maximum, but at
higher velocities, dependent on the cohesive properties of the dust, reentrainment
results in a signifcant degrading of efciency. In general, for a dry precipitator design
gas velocities approaching 2 m s−1 should be avoided, although for wet precipitators
higher velocities can be tolerated, because of the
lower scouring risk. Although dry precipitators can be designed for operation at low
velocity, economics and space limitations in practice automatically tend to limit the
design velocity to some 1 m s−1.
3.6 Gas turbulence
Turbulence is a feature of all operational precipitators, initially arising at the
inlet distributors controlling the gas fow, then from the components and structural
members inside the casing. The discharge electrodes themselves produce
eddies and vortices and the fow across the collector boundary layer itself creates
turbulence whether or not there are protuberances on the collector surface. In
addition, the electrons and negative ions moving at high velocity through the
inter-electrode space, the so termed ‘ionic wind’, creates intense local turbulent
vortices.
The turbulent gas fow is infuenced by gravity, the electric feld and viscosity
that serves to control the fow of electrons, ions and the particles. In his early
work, Deutsch [1], assuming that the forces acting on a spherical particle to be
electrical Coulomb and Stokes’ drag forces in a quiescent gas, proposed that the
particle migration velocity, ω, took the form of
ω qEp/3πdpη, (3.1)
where q is the particle charge, Ep is the feld strength, dp is the particle diameter
and η is the gas viscosity.
The difusion charge and feld efects were later considered by Cochet [2] and
by Smith and McDonald [3], by introducing the term ‘particle mobility’ (mp),
where
mp q/3πdpη. (3.2)
Substituting in Equation (3.1) we obtain
ω mp × Ep.
This is the Coulomb Stokes’ value, which Deutsch introduced into his efciency
equation as
efciency 1 – exp [(ω/v) × (L/d)], (3.3)
where v is the mean axial velocity, L is the precipitator length, d is the distance
between discharge and collector electrodes, and ω is the so termed efective
particle migration velocity.
In this equation, Deutsch assumed that the particle concentration profle
across the inter-electrode area was uniform owing to electric wind and that the
fow was fully turbulent.
The degree of turbulence has a negative efect on efciency particularly at low
fows as indicated previously. Work by Thomsen et al. [4], working with parallel
plate precipitators, produced curves shown in Figure 3.7, relating the turbulence
intensity Vrms/V0 against mean axial velocity with and without electrode