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Improving the Removal Efficiency of Cyclones by Recycle Stream

Article  in  Chemical Engineering & Technology · October 2006

DOI: 10.1002/ceat.200600085

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1242 Chem. Eng. Technol. 2006, 29, No. 10, 1242–1246

Sepehr Sadighi1 Research Article

Mansoor Shirvani1
Mansooreh Esmaeli1 Improving the Removal Efficiency of Cyclones
Raheleh Farzami1
by Recycle Stream
1
Cement Research Center, Iran
University of Science and
An innovative way to increase the overall efficiency of a cyclone is presented. By
Technology, Narmak, Tehran,
recycling a fraction of the output stream to the inlet duct, the efficiency of the cy-
Iran.
clone can be improved. Experiments were conducted using bench scale (0.1 m dia-
meter) and pilot scale (0.456 m diameter) cyclones. The overall efficiency was eval-
uated for both cyclones at different ranges of recycle ratios. In the presence of the
recycle stream, the efficiency increases in a monotonic manner. It may approach
100 % with the use of very high recycle ratios, provided that there is agglomeration
of the fine particles available in the feed stream and/or adhesion of fines to the
coarse particles. From the experimental results, it is observed that the agglomera-
tion of fine particles is the most important factor for improving the cyclone effi-
ciency by use of a recycle stream. Moreover, the effect of the recycle stream persists,
even if the inlet velocity surpasses the saltation velocity of the cyclone.

Keywords: Agglomeration, Cyclones, Particles

Received: March 4, 2006; revised: May 25, 2006; accepted: June 12, 2006
DOI: 10.1002/ceat.200600085

1 Introduction efficiency is the use of a centrifugal impeller inside the cyclone,

The cyclone separator is one of the most widely used devices
to separate and recover industrial dusts from air or process
gases. Due to their relative simplicity to fabricate, low opera-
tion costs and ease of adaptation to extremely harsh condi-
tions, cyclone dust separators have become one of the most
important particle removal devices utilized in process indus-
tries. However, there are several limitations inherent to cy-
clones such as the low collection efficiency for fine particles
and flat collection efficiency curve or low sharpness of the
collection efficiency curve [1]. Since their discovery over a
century ago, many researchers have contributed to the large
volume of work on improving the efficiency of cyclones by in-
troducing either improved design and operating variables or
by new modifications in the design of the equipment [2].
However, most of these improvements are associated with
sophisticated structure and additional operating costs [3]. An
auxiliary device, called the Post Cyclone (PoC) was introduced
and tested for its ability to reduce the emission of fines from
industrial cyclones [4, 5]. Recently, in order to increase the effi-
ciency of conventional cyclones, a double cyclone both with
and without, an electric field has been proposed and tested
[6]. Another recent innovation for improving the collection
– the equipment to the atmosphere or entering into another dust
Correspondence: S. Sadighi (sadighis@ripi.ir), Cement Research
Center, Iran University of Science and Technology, Narmak, P. O. Box
16846-13114, Tehran, Iran.
in place of the immersion tube, for the purpose of increased
repulsion of the dusts escaping from the cyclone [7].
In the present work, a new configuration to increase the effi-
ciency of cyclones has been introduced and tested at laboratory
and pilot scales. By use of this scheme called Cyclone with Re-
cycling Stream (CRS), a portion of the output gases is recycled
to the feeding duct of the cyclone via a simple device, called
the Recycle Dividing Chamber (RDC). This results in the efflu-
ent fine particles reentering the cyclone. As a result, the overall
efficiency is increased by a quantity dependent on the percent-
age recycled, which is controllable. A well designed CRS has
several advantages over other dust treatment processes: (i)
simple design, (ii) low capital cost and (iii) recovery of the
product dust, which is an attractive feature for the food and
drug industries, cement industry and refineries (fluid catalytic
cracking). Moreover, it can be installed without any major
changes to the original cyclone.
2 Equipment Description
The physical mechanism of dust collection in the CRS is rather
similar to that of a cyclone. In this design, the outlet stream
from the cyclone is divided into two streams. One is the recycle
stream and the other is the cleanout stream, exhausting from
removal device. This task is easily achieved in a simple device
called an RDC (Recycle Dividing Chamber). A special design
used for the recycle stream divider helps to increase the con-

© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim http://www.cet-journal.com

Chem. Eng. Technol. 2006, 29, No. 10, 1242–1246 Cyclones 1243

centration of particles in the recycle stream, compared to that

in the cleanout stream, which leaves the dividing chamber.
As seen from Fig. 1, the inlet stream to the RDC, as well as
the cleanout effluent from it are both in the axial direction,
while the recycle stream from the RDC leaves the vessel tan-
gentially. A secondary immersion tube with a smaller diameter
than that of the cyclone is inserted from the top into the RDC
vessel, extending towards the bottom of the recycle dividing
chamber. The direction of the tangential recycle stream from
the RDC is such that the rotational movement of particles in
the chamber will be amplified inside the immersion tube of
the cyclone. Therefore, it is useful to increase the concentra-
tion of the particles entering the recycle stream relative to that
in the input stream or cleanout stream of the RDC. In this
way, by recycling more particles to the cyclone, an increase in
efficiency can be obtained.
According to Fig. 1, the recycle ratio can be defined as
r = Qr/Qcf. In this paper it is shown that the efficiency of the
CRS is strongly linked to the recycle rate1). The results of ex-
periments have proven that there is a perceptible improvement
in cyclone efficiency obtained by increasing the recycle stream.
This claim has been demonstrated by two sets of experiments
using bench and pilot scale cyclones with diameters of 0.1 m
and 0.456 m, respectively.
The values of the dimensions of tested cyclones are pre-
sented in Tab. 1. From the various designs available for cy-
clones, the high efficiency Stairmand design cyclone was cho-
sen in this research [8]. In the experiments undertaken, the
recycle ratio has been manipulated in a wide range of values.

3 Experimental
The flow diagram of the experimental setup is shown in the
Fig. 2. The test dust for the bench scale cyclone was ordinary
masonry cement powder, and for the pilot scale cyclone was ef-
fluent gypsum powder from a gypsum manufacturing plant.
Their particle size distributions are shown in Figs. 3a), and
3b), respectively.
The dusts were introduced into the inlet duct of the bench
and pilot cyclones at the rates of 5 g/s and 8.33 g/s, respective- Figure 1. The schematic illustration of the CRS scheme.
ly. The total injected solid (TIS) to the bench and pilot cy-
clones were 2 kg and 12 kg, respectively, for each test run.
The effluent gas from the RDC passed through a bag filter Initially, varying the feed flow rate from 33.85–87.70 m3/h
before being released to the air. The flow rate of the recycle by manipulating the voltage of the blower resulted in the test-
stream and the total flow rate of air into the inlet duct were ing the efficiency of the bench cyclone itself, with the recycle
measured by ventury tubes. Then, the flow of fresh air into the flow rate equal to zero. From the above tests, efficiency varia-
cyclone was determined from the available measurements. tions of the cyclone were characterized, and the point of maxi-
mum efficiency was determined. Then, after determining the
flow rate of maximum efficiency, which should appear before
4 Results and Discussion the saltation velocity of the cyclone, the addition of the recycle
stream was begun. At this point, its ratio was increased from
In order to evaluate the collection efficiency of the CRS 15 %–65 %, while the fresh feed flow rate to the cyclone, Qff,
scheme, two sets of experiments were carried out at bench was held constant at the point of maximum efficiency without
scale and one set using a pilot scale cyclone. recycling. In this way, the effect of increasing the recycle stream
on the efficiency was determined in the region of decreasing
efficiency, which appears due to high flow rates.
– In the next stage of the investigation, experiments were con-
1) List of symbols at the end of the paper. ducted to analyze the performance of the pilot CRS by varying

© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim http://www.cet-journal.com

1244 S. Sadighi et al. Chem. Eng. Technol. 2006, 29, No. 10, 1242–1246

Table 1. List of geometrical ratios and the dimensions of tested

cyclones, according to Fig. 1. a
Geometrical Ratio Bench Scale (cm) Pilot Scale (cm) 60
50

Distribution(%)
Dc 10 45.6
40
De 5 22.8 30

B 3.75 17.1 20
10
a 5 22.8
0
b 2 9.1 0 30 60 90 120 150
-6
h 15 68.4 Particle Diameter (10 m)
H 40 182.4 b
S 5 22.8
60
Dr 7.7 35.1
50

Distribution(%)
Ar 7.7 35.1 40
br 3.9 17.8 30
20
Def 2.8 12.8
10
Sr 3.5 16
0
L 0.7 2 0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240
Particle Diameter(10-6 m)

Figure 3. (a) Size distribution of masonry cement powder used

for testing the bench scale cyclone; (b) Size distribution of cy-
clone effluent gypsum powders, used for testing the pilot scale
cyclone.

0,95

0,94
Efficiency

0,93

0,92
Figure 2. Schematic diagram of the experimental setup.
0,91

the recycle ratio from 19 %–89 %, with a fixed flow rate of Qcf
of 1350 m3/h. The overall efficiency of CRS, gCRS, for all the
experiments was calculated on the basis of the following ex-
pression:
mF mB
gCRS ˆ × 100 (1)
mF
where mf is the total mass of solid particles entered the cy-
clone, and mB is the total mass of solid particles collected in
the bag filter.
At the bench scale, the maximum mass efficiency, at 0 % re-
cycle, was determined to be 94 % for masonry cement dust
particles, which passed at a feed flow rate of 40 m3/h. Fig. 4
depicts these test results.
In order to determine the effectiveness of the recycling tech-
nique, a flow rate of 40 m3/hr was chosen as the starting point
for the remainder of the experiments on the bench scale. Thus,
these experiments were conducted at a fixed fresh feed flow
rate, Qff, of 40 m3/h, by increasing the recycle flow rate, Qr, as
0,9
30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Feed Flowrate(m3/hr)
Figure 4. The influence of feed flow rate on the efficiency of the
bench cyclone without recycle stream (dust flow rate = 5 g/s).
well as the cyclone total feed flow rate, Qcf. This should dem-
onstrate the effect of recycling on efficiency, while the velocity
of the total feed stream to the cyclone gradually increases
above the saltation velocity. Fig. 5 demonstrates these results.
It is seen that in spite of the diverse effects of operating above
the saltation velocity, which is evident from Fig. 4, a significant
and monotone increase in efficiency appears under recycling
conditions.
The sharp increase in efficiency which begins at a recycle
flow rate of ca. 11.7 m3/h (equal to 51.7 m3/h total feed rate to
the cyclone) seen in Fig. 5, is considered to be due to the fine

© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim http://www.cet-journal.com

Chem. Eng. Technol. 2006, 29, No. 10, 1242–1246 Cyclones 1245

Feed Flowrate=40 m3/hr

tion of fines, is not seen in Fig. 6. This may be due to a change
in the powder used. Moreover, it may also be due to the larger
0,99
cyclone, in which the rotational speed of air is less than that
0,98 for the bench scale cyclone.
Efficiency

0,97
5 Conclusions
0,96

0,95 The recycling technique increases the mass efficiency of a cy-

clone. The increase, not only depends on the rate of recycle
0,94 ratio for a specific particle size distribution of the powder ma-
4 8 12 16 20 24 terial, but also on the physical properties of the particles such
Recycle Flowrate(m3/hr) as the agglomeration characteristics of the fine particles at ele-
Figure 5. The influence of recycle stream on the efficiency of the vated velocities in the cyclone. This is an advantage of the recy-
bench CRS (air flow rate = 40 m3/h, dust input rate = 5 g/s). cling technique for obtaining increased overall efficiencies in
comparison to the technique of using cyclones in series.
In actual fact, the use of recycling in cyclones decreases the
particle agglomeration phenomenon, which helps to improve throughput capacity of the equipment as well as the power
the overall efficiency, above that expected as a result of the ad- consumption. This is similar to the design of cyclones in series
ditional fine particles entering the cyclone by recycling. for obtaining higher efficiencies. However, with the serial de-
The agglomeration of fine particles is a phenomenon, which sign of cyclones, the accumulation and agglomeration of fines
may appear in some special conditions such as gas solid fluid- and the respective increases in efficiency are not evident, while
ized beds [9] and spray driers [10]. Its appearance is mainly in the recycling design it is possible to reach much higher effi-
dependent on the concentration of fines, as well as their type ciencies via a very high recycle ratio.
and the physical properties. In the CRS cyclone, the concentra-
tion of fines in the total feed stream entering the cyclone in-
creases with increasing recycle ratio. Thus, it is feasible that the Symbols used
sharp increase in efficiency seen in Fig. 5, could be considered
to result from the agglomeration of fines. It is interesting that A [m] length of the cyclone channel
the effect even continues to more elevated recycle ratios. As is B [m] width of the cyclone channel
seen from Fig. 5, the fine particle agglomeration phenomenon B [m] dust exit diameter of the cyclone
is particularly prevalent at high recycling rates. This is mainly ar [m] length of the recycle channel
due to the concentration of fines in the original feed stream. br [m] width of the recycle channel
The experiments using the pilot stage were conducted using Dc [m] diameter of the cyclone
cyclone effluent powders from a gypsum factory, the results De [m] diameter of the emission tube
for which are shown in Fig. 6. As expected, the overall mass Der [m] diameter of the emission tube
efficiency again increased monotonically with the increase in inside the dividing chamber
recycle ratio, while operating at a fixed total feed flow rate. The Dr [m] diameter of the recycle dividing
increase was from ca. 97 %–99.2 % at a fixed inlet flow rate of chamber
1350 m3/h. A sharp increase in the efficiency, like that ob- h [m] height of the cylindrical portion
served at bench scale, believed to result from the agglomera- of the cyclone
H [m] total height of the cyclone
L [g] excess height of the emission
Feed Flowrate=1350 m3/hr tube
99,4 mf [g] total mass of solid particles
entered the cyclone
99 mB [g] total mass of solid particles
98,6 collected in the bag filter
Efficiency

Qcf [m3/h] flowrate of the cyclone feed

98,2
stream
97,8 Qff [m3/h] flowrate of the fresh feed stream
Qr [m3/h] flowrate of the recycle stream
97,4
S [m] height of the emission tube
97 Sr [m] height of the recycle dividing
9 24 39 54 69 84 99 chamber
Recycle Ratio(%)
gCRS [–] efficiency of CRS
Figure 6. The influence of recycle stream on the efficiency of the
pilot scale CRS, Qcf = 1350 m3/h (input dust = 8.33 g/s of cy-
clone effluent powders from a gypsum factory).

© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim http://www.cet-journal.com

 1246 S. Sadighi et al.
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