Gas-solid separations

• Gas-solid separation holds prime importance in chemical engineering.

• Application range from separation of catalyst particles from hydrocarbon vapours in a fluid catalytic cracking unit
(FCCU) to separating dust particles from exhaust gases from chemical plants.

• Gas-solid separators:

(i) Momentum separators: dust collectors (separates dust) or entrainment separators (separates liquid mist)
(ii) Filters: Bag filters and Air filters
(iii) Impingement separators
(iv) Wet separators or scrubbers
(v) Centrifugal separators (Cyclones)

• Principle of momentum separators:

(i) Very similar to surface velocity classifier

(ii) Incoming dust laden gas slowed down due to sudden increase in flow area of the chamber
(iii) Dust particles settle down to the bottom of the chamber
(iv) By using a number of chambers in series, dust particles of different sizes can be separated
(v) Cheap in construction but don’t provide sharp separations
(vi) Best suitable for particles of sizes above 100 microns
 Bag filter
• Bag Filter, baghouse, fabric filter separates dust from the exhaust gas by
collecting them with the filter media.
• The dust is accumulated on the surface of filter media. And the filter media
is cleaned by reverse airflow called backwashing (pulse-jet).
• They employ thin woven fabric as the filter medium (older version) or felt
(newer version). “Felt” is a non-woven cloth that is produced by matting,
condensing, and pressing fibers together.
• Initial separation process: It initially takes place due to interception and
impingement on cloth fibres and gravity settling and brownian motion in
pores.
• This is not usual filtration as the pores of the filter fabric are usually much
larger than size of the particles to be separated. Efficiency in this type of
separation is low.
• Separation via filtration: Once enough particles are separated, they build Fig. Bag filter: (a) Filtering
up in the pores of the filter as “precoat” and proper filtration occurs. period, and (b) Shaking
period
• Efficiency of this stage of separation is usually well over 99 %.
• Filter fabrics are made up of a variety of materials like cotton, wool, nylon
etc.
 Impingement separators

• Use greater inertia of dust compared to air molecules as the basis of separation.
• As dust laded fluid impinges on a body, air moves around it while the dust tends to get collected on the
surface of the body.
• Air filter is a type of impingement separator.

Air filter

• Air filters can handle much lower dust concentrations than bag filters.
• Thus, they are used for removing dust from atmospheric air where dust concentration is much lower than
those in exhaust gases from industries.
• These viscous filters use mats of asbestos, glass or metal wires wet with a volatile oil that helps in
retaining the dust i.e. prevent re-entrainment of the separated dust.
• The mats are replaced by new ones once the maximum permissible dust load has accumulated or can be
reused after washing or steaming and reoiling.
• They use a combination of impingement action and washing by a
counter-current stream of scrubbing liquid (mostly water). Wet separators or scrubbers

• Spray tower: (i) Has a very low pressure drop, (ii) suitable for removal
of very fine particles (greater than 5-10 μm), (iii) impingement of
dust particles is with incoming water droplets, and (iv) wire mesh
mist eliminator is used to remove water droplets
• Venturi scrubber: (i) Energy from high velocity gas stream used to
atomize a scrubbing liquid which then capture particulates using
impaction, (ii) used for very small particles (less than 1 μm), and (iii)
diverging section slows down the gas which allows droplets to
coalesce and settle down in the gas liquid separator.

Fig. Spray
tower
scrubber
Fig. Venturi scrubber
 Electrostatic separators
(ESPs)
Fig. Electrostatic precipitator
(used to separate very fine dust or
mist from gases)

• Two electrodes are placed on both sides of the dust-laden gas, one small in cross-section (discharge electrode) and
the other collector electrode (which is earthed).
• High potential difference of the order of 30,000 to 100,000 volts is struck between the two electrodes which
causes the gas to be ionized at the discharge electrode (due to high electric field intensity due to its low cross
section).
• The ions get attached to the particles which are then attracted towards the collector electrode and get deposited
there.
• ESPs offer very high collection efficiencies (99 to 99.9 %) even with very fine particles.
• They can even be employed at temperatures as large as 600 oC and pressures up to 10 atm.
• Their demerit lies in their high capital and maintenance cost.
• Application: Flue gas (from FCCU regenerator) and catalyst particle separation, removal of fly ash (other being
bottom ash) from power plant/steam boiler flue gas.
 Cyclones
• Cyclone separators are one of the most commonly used and
inexpensive equipment for gas-solid separation, from both operating
and investment view points.
• It has the advantage of not having any moving or rotating parts.
• Centrifugal action is introduced by admitting the dust laden or mist
laden gas tangentially at high velocity.
• Dimensions: Square/Rectangular inlet: Hi (inlet height) x Bi (inlet depth),
Z (depth or height) = 4D, Do (gas oulet)=D/2, Hi (gas inlet)=D/2, Bi (gas
inlet)=D/4, Sc = D/8, Du = arbitrary, β = 180 o
• Gas develops a helical/spiral
motion and particles experience
very large centrifugal forces and
are thus thrown outwards
towards the wall.

• Gas passes up along the inner

core near the axis of the
Fig. Cyclone chamber and goes out from the
separator (path of
top while separated particles are
gas following a
double vortex)
discharged from the bottom Fig. Cyclone separator
outlet. (dimensions)
 Cyclones (contd.) mu2tan/r

• Separation factor, ratio of centrifugal and gravitational force, S = Fc/Fg mg

• Small diameter cyclones have higher separation factors (ex: 2500) as extremely high velocities (ex: 15-20
m/s) in large cyclones will have high pressure drop and increased abrasive wear. That’s why they are
preferred.

• They are suitable for solid-gas separation when solid particles are above 5-10 microns.

• If the dust particles have a high agglomeration tendency, forming flocs of larger sizes, separation efficiency
can be high even at lower particles sizes.

• At the same times, too coarse particles are undesirable as they have a tendency to bounce of the walls and be
entrained in the product gas (if possible they should be removed in a pre-separator by another separation
process)

• Cyclones have successfully been operated at temperatures as high as 1000 oC and pressure as high as 50 atm.

• Commercial cyclone operate well when the average size of the particles does not fall below 5-10 microns.
 Relevant formulae: (Dp)min
1ൗ
2 2
3.6 𝐴𝑖 𝐷𝑜 ρ μ൘
(𝐷𝑝 )𝑚𝑖𝑛 = π Z D ρ𝑝 𝐺
• (Dp)min is the minimum size of the particle of density ρp which can be
separated from the gas (decreasing it increases separation
efficiency)
• If we decrease (Dp)min, even lower sized particles can be separated
from the gas
• To do that, we can decrease either Ai or Do (at the cost of an increase
in pressure drop)
• Or increase G (mass flowrate of gas) (at the cost of an increase in
pressure drop)
• Or increase height (Z) and diameter (D) (this will increase capital cost
of the cyclone separator)
Fig. Cyclone separator
𝐺2 𝐾 16 1 (dimensions)
−Δ𝑃 = 0.7475 ∗ + −
ρ𝑔 𝐴𝑖 𝐷𝑜2 π2 𝐷𝑜4 𝐴2𝑖 We need to optimize the parameters
• Experimentally obtained expression for calculation of pressure (dimensions, flowrate etc.) in such a way that
drop in cyclones. K is an empirical constant: 16 (usually) separation efficiency is sufficiently high while
the pressure drop is within acceptable limits.
 Relevant points
• We cannot depend too much on manipulating G for improving the performance of the cyclone separator
as we want a decent range of flowrates where it can operate satisfactorily.
• Another problem is the introduction of turbulence at high gas flowrates which reduces collection
efficiency.
• We can increase the capacity of cyclone separators by using them in parallel.
• Cyclones can be employed one inside another in a configuration called multi-cyclones.
• In this configuration, feed gas is introduced tangentially into the outermost separator where the coarsest
particles are separated.
• The partially cleaned gas is then fed to the inner cyclone through tangential openings and less coarser
particles are removed there and so on till we separate finest particles.
• This configuration is especially useful in case of particles of large size range being present in the feed.
• The cut diameter is a measure of the efficiency of a cyclone system (lower means high efficiency). In
cyclone, cut diameter is defined as the diameter of a particle for which the efficiency has the value of 0.5,
i.e. 50%.
• The lower this value, the higher is the cyclone efficiency.
• The collection or separation efficiency is most properly defined for a given particle size.
• As mentioned, fractional efficiency is defined as the fraction of particles of a given size collected in the
cyclone, compared to those of that size going into the cyclone.
• Overall efficiency, η = ∑ ηiwi, in/∑wi, in
ηi= (wi,in-wi,out)*100/(wi,in)