Response surface methodology to model the electrostatic precipitation of nanoparticles at low air velocities

Abstract

Low air velocities are not fully explored yet in the field of electrostatic precipitation due to the size limitations of the industrial devices, but they had provided high collection efficiencies for nanoparticles in studies in laboratory scale. In order to contribute to the science of electrostatic precipitation, a full 3² factorial design of experiments was performed to evaluate the effect of operating conditions (applied voltages from -8.0 to -8.2 kV and air velocities from 1.67 to 19.9 cm s^-1) on the overall mass efficiency of electrostatic precipitation of KCl nanoparticles (5.94–224.7 nm). Response Surface Methodology was used to assess the range of operating conditions that provide the highest efficiencies. The highest percentual efficiency (99.870 ± 0.008) was obtained for -8.2 kV and 6.67 cm s^-1. A polynomial model fitted well the experimental data (R² = 0.99217).