Experimental study of membrane-based electrostatic precipitators with high filtration accuracy

Abstract

Electrostatic precipitators (ESPs) with the membrane-based collecting electrode play an important role on the welding flue gas cleaning process. The research has been conducted on both bench and pilot scales with novel electrostatic precipitation using PTFE microporous membranes. Two types of membranes collector were used for testing — the charged and uncharged PTFE microporous membranes substrate. Tests were performed to measure the collection efficiency of the membranes. The result indicated that uncharged membrane is effective as charged membrane plates as a collection surface in a bench-scale ESP for the capture of PM2.5, but the charged membrane has a higher efficiency when particle size is lower than 0.3 μm, which is more suitable for collecting fine particulates. The preliminary data of the pilot-scale experimental also indicated that charged membranes exhibited excellent particulate capture efficiencies for welding flue gas, and the collection efficiency was reached 99.1%, which can achieve an ultra-low concentration emission of flue gas less than 1 mg/m3.