Advances in Centrifugal Separators for Particulate Matter Control from Stationary Sources

This paper summarized recent developments in centrifugal separators for particulate matter (PM) emission control. Airborne particulate matter, which is responsible for many health and environmental problems, is generated mostly from combustion processes in stationary sources such as house burners and power plants and other production facilities, except field dust. Reverse flow cyclones are centrifugal separators having been widely used for industrial particulate matter removal. Typical pressure drops of these cyclones for air cleaning are 500 Pa or higher, and were believed to be only able to separate particles larger than 10 μm. An aerodynamic deduster that could separate particles as small as 1μm at a pressure drop of 200 Pa was recently developed. Field evaluation showed that the deduster can be effectively used in reducing particulate matter emission from stationary sources.