Examination of voltage-current characteristics of corona discharge in an electrostatic precipitator in case of significant dust space charge

Electrostatic precipitators are widely used in industrial plants to fulfill the requirements of the limitation of dust emissions due to their good separation efficiency. However, the separation efficiency is depending a lot on the particle sizes. Our article was based on the field experience of an ESP with a reduced separation efficiency, in which the firing technology changed. As a result, smaller particles are getting at the entrance to the ESP. To accurately track the process, we examined different cases of a numerical model, supplemented by static model and laboratory measurements. In this paper, we showed that reducing the incoming dust mass does not definitely cause an improvement in the separation.