MADHUMITA B. RAY, POUWEL E. LUNING, AND ALEX C. HOFFMANN, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Groningen, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands
A novel approach for reducing the emission of industrial
scale cyclones of particles smaller than 10 mm is presented. Utilising
the strong swirl already present in the vortex finder of a conventional
cyclone, the escaped dust from the cyclone is collected in a so-called
"Post Cyclone" (PoC) which is a cylindrical annular
shell located on top of the vortex finder. Experiments were conducted
in a cyclone larger than the usual laboratory range (dia.=0.4
m) with different configurations of the PoC and over a range of
operating conditions. Flow patterns and collection efficiency
for the cyclone and the PoC, both individually and in combination,
were calculated and compared with exprimental data. Both the
experiments and simulations indicate a decrease in emission of
particles 1-3 mm
by around 30 %, rising with particle size to around 50 % for 5
mm particles.
Key words: Cyclone, gas cleaning, fine particles, separation
efficiency, numerical simulation.