Electrostatic Precipitators

Field charging occurs when a particle is located within an electric field that contains ions. The ions will travel along the electric field lines. The presence of the particle will disrupt the electric field somewhat. If the particle holds relatively little charge, the electric field lines will tend to flow through the particle and in that case ions that flow along the field lines will contact the particle and transfer their charge to it. As the particle becomes charged, the electric field lines will be repelled from the particle and field charging will no longer occur. At that point, the particle has attained its saturation field charge. The number of charges that a particle receives due to field charging is given by