Journal of Electrostatics 73 (2015) 19e25

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Journal of Electrostatics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/elstat

Review

Effect of air flow on corona discharge in wire-to-plate electrostatic

precipitator
H. Ait Said a, H. Nouri a, b, *, Y. Zebboudj a
a
Laboratoire de Genie Electrique, Universit
e A. Mira de B
ejaïa, 06000 B
ejaïa, Algeria
b
Electrical Engineering Department, University of Setif_1, 19000, Algeria

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper analyses corona discharge in ambient air with laboratory-scaled wire-to-plate electrostatic
Received 31 March 2014 precipitator (WPESP). The electric field is behind the electro hydrodynamic (EHD) flow in air. Its mea-
Received in revised form surements provide complementary results for the corona discharge study because the classical theory
16 September 2014
based on the current and voltage data is unsatisfactory. Taking into account the dynamic air flow velocity
Accepted 27 October 2014
Available online 7 November 2014
is perpendicular to the active wires, measurement method of the positive and negative DC corona
current density and electric field, has been introduced. It has been shown also that the dynamic air flow
velocity modifies the current density and the electric field distributions on the planes surfaces of the
Keywords:
Corona discharge
WPESP.
Electrostatic precipitator © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Current density
Electric field
Air flow

Introduction complex. Thus EHD flow form arrays of large-scale, span-wise,

counter-rotating vertical structures [6].
Electrostatic precipitators are widely used in technology to The collection efficiency of the wire-to-plate electrostatic pre-
collect suspended particles in gases using an electrostatic force cipitators (WPESPs) depends on numerous variables like the global
and they are one of the ways to control air pollution caused by drift velocity of charged particles to be removed and their distri-
industrial plants. Considerable research has been carried out butions, the magnitude and the polarity of applied voltage, the
during the last decades [1e5]. The configuration mostly used in active electrodes radius, the humidity and temperature of the air,
electrostatic precipitation technique is the wires-to-plates. It etc….
consists of high-field parallel active wires located midway be- The basic corona discharge physics is well-known and it can be
tween the grounded plates (the collecting electrodes) where the described as a self-sustaining electrical gas discharge occurring at
air flows through. The ions produced by the corona near the wire the vicinity of high-field electrodes. In the WPESPs the high-field
load particles of dust that are in the air which are then driven wires are surrounded by ionisation region where the free charges
toward the collecting plates. The particle charges are neutralised are produced and a low-field drift region where charged particles
and the particle are thus collected. Although the geometry is derived to the collecting plates. The corona migration region is
simple, it is noticed that there is a complex behaviour of the air governed by the Poisson's equation and the current continuity
flow. Due to the collision with neutral molecules in the air, there is equation. A complete solution of these equations is not simple. For
a transfer of kinetic energy in the flow by the electric field. This practical applications, therefore, empirical and semi-empirical
secondary flow is called electro hydrodynamic flow or ionic wind. formulae have a useful function. When the number of wires is
Both electric field and air flow are present and interacting with high the geometry can be considered equivalent to a coaxial system
each other, which makes the analysis of the body force very as described by Cooperman [7], where the equivalent cylinder
radius Re is given by:

a ph
* Corresponding author. Laboratoire de Ge nie Electrique, Universite
 A. Mira de Re ¼ ea (1)
2p
jaïa, 06000 Be
Be jaïa, Algeria. Fax: þ213 (0) 34 21 51 05.
E-mail address: [email protected] (H. Nouri).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.elstat.2014.10.004
0304-3886/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
20 H. Ait Said et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 73 (2015) 19e25

and the inception field Ei according to the inception voltage Vi at the density and the applied electric field and make the measurements
wires surface is given by: of this field over the collector electrode very complicated.
The introduced method of electric field measurement uses the
Vi Tassicker's biased probes [8e11] which are simple circular or linear
Ei ¼ (2) sensors, incorporated on a same level of surface in a plane electrode
R ln RRe
biased at a voltage. They can be miniaturised and suitable for DC
corona discharge.
where h is the wires-to-plate spacing, a is the half wire-to-wire
spacing and R is the wires radius. The Cooperman's model is
widely used in the design and evaluation of precipitators. Experimental apparatus and design of the probe system
In this article a new experimental method has been proposed in
order to measure the current density and the electric field at the The experimental method aims to obtain new measurements of
one grounded plates where the velocity of the inlet air in the current density and electric field for positive and negative DC
WPESP is associated. The experimented air is free of particles and corona in laboratory-scaled WPESP, Fig. 1, and in which the inlet air
the velocity is perpendicular to the corona wires. The primary air velocity of the ambient air, free of all particles, is controlled. 13
flow and the EHD flow modify the distribution of the space charge parallel wires (1) are fixed with two insulating supports (2) and

Fig. 1. Experimental assembly with the circular field probe (not in scale). 1: corona wires. 2, 3, 4:Insulating props. 5: screen. 6: d.c. high voltage source. 7: high voltage divider. 8:
voltmeter. 9: picoammeter. 10: d.c. low voltage source. P probe collector; E biased electrode; G guard planes; C0 collector plane.
 H. Ait Said et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 73 (2015) 19e25 21

located midway between two planes (C) and (C0 ) at h ¼ 50 mm and where r is the radius of the collector (P) and g the air gap between
the wire-to-wire spacing is fixed at a ¼ 40 mm, where (C) is made (P) and (E).
up of one biased electrode (E), a circular probe (P) and two guard From Equations (3)e(6) the current ratio is given by:
planes (G). The probe is incorporated on a same level of surface at
the centre of the electrode (E) and the end-effects were prevented I C0 V
¼1þ $ b (8)
by the two guard planes (G). All the components are made of I0 p$ε0 $rm
2 E

stainless steel and are fixed with insulating props. Positive direct
The unknown external field E could be determined by the
voltage, supplied by a 0e±140 kV source (6), is applied to the wires;
measurements of I0 and I. The relationship (8) gives a characteristic
a high voltage divider (7) and a DC voltmeter (8) are used to
I/I0 linear with the bias voltage Vb. However, for high values of Vb,
measure the applied voltage V. The current probe collector (P) is
when the total field at the surface of the plate is inverted, due to the
connected to a picoammeter (9) and the plane is on-line to the DC
bias electric field Eb > E, a deviation of the characteristics occurs and
low voltage source (10). The larger of the polarised plate (E) is
thus the relationship (8) is not valid.
l ¼ 200 mm according to the y-axis and the longer is L ¼ 800 mm
The probe functions depend mainly on the choice of these di-
according to the x-axis.
mensions and the precision of its construction. A good sensitivity of
The inlet air flow along the x-axis and free of all particles, is
the current ratio I/I0 is obtained for a probe radius r not very high
provided with a ventilator (11) where the velocity is controlled.
and an air gap g very small. The ratio r/g must be as high as
This ventilator is online to an AC low voltage source and the ve-
reasonably possible. The probe must be easily removable for a
locity v is measured by means of an anemometer. The system is
regular cleaning from dust. The model under consideration is
calibrated in absence of the discharge in measuring v with varying
optimised to obtain these qualities. The probe collector radius is
the supplied source voltage U and the characteristic veU is thus
r ¼ 2.235 mm, the plate orifice is re ¼ 2.27 mm, which gives an air
used for the velocity control when the corona discharge occurs in
gap g ¼ 0.035 mm, a ratio r/g ¼ 64, an effective radius of the probe
the WPESP. The ventilator allows following continuously the air
collector rm ¼ r þ g/2 ¼ 2.2525 mm and the capacity value
across the precipitator and we can to vary the velocity of the flow.
C0 ¼ 0.223 pF.
The probe requires a careful assembly. Indeed, some leakage
The expression (8) can be written as:
current, of about a few pico-ampermeters could result from the bias
plate (E) or the high voltage wires and affecting the current mea- I
surements. The probe is fixed with two insulating plates (4) and the ¼ 1 þ P$Vb (9)
I0
leakage was prevented by using a screen (5). The leakage current
between the corona wires and the probe is evacuated to earth by with:
the guard planes (G).
The circular biased probe theory is fully developed in Refs. C0 1585:35
P¼ ¼ (10)
[8e10], but will be briefly recalled in this section. The probe col- p$ε0 $rm
2 $E E
lector (P) collects a current I0 resulting from the corona discharge.
This current will be reduced or increased to I when a voltage Vb is The slope P is determined by the measurements of the current
applied to the plate (E) in producing a bias electric field Eb. When ratio I/I0 and the bias voltage Vb, thus, the electric field E can be
the probe collector (P) is placed beneath the positive corona wires, determined if P is known.
Eb is opposed to the unknown field E at the surface of the probe To verify probe function, we used 13 polished wires of radius
when Vb < 0 and Eb is added to E when Vb > 0. On the other hand, R ¼ 0.200 mm. We made the measurements of I/I0 for different bias
when the probe collector is placed beneath the negative corona voltages Vb, between 100 and þ100 V, where the corona voltage V
wires, Eb is added to E when Vb < 0 and Eb is opposed E when Vb > 0. and the inlet air velocity v are maintained constant during the tests.
The corona currents I under the condition Vb and I0 under the The measurements have allowed us to determine the field E, at the
condition Vb ¼ 0 are respectively: collector surface of the WPESP, using the Equations (9) and (10). The
current ration I/I0 values measured for various applied corona voltage
  are shown in Fig. 2. In all the cases, the characteristic I/I0 ¼ f(Vb) is
4 þ 4S1
I ¼ J$S ¼ m$r$ðE þ Eb Þ:S ¼ m$r$ S0 (3) linear for 80V < Vb < þ80 V. The deviation of the characteristics
ε0
occurs when Vb > 80 V or Vb < 80 V. These results provide a veri-
fication of the probe function and the limit of the bias voltage Vb.
4
I0 ¼ J0 $S ¼ m$r$E$S ¼ m$r$ S0 (4) The probe collector is also used to measure the normal current
ε0
density J when the probe is unbiased (Vb ¼ 0):
m is the ion mobility (m2/V.s), r the space charge density (C/m3), S ¼ I0
p$rm2 (m2) is the effective surface of the collector (P), r
m is the J¼ (11)
p$rm2
effective radius, 4S0 is the flux due to the unknown electric field E to
be measured and 4S1 is the flux due to the bias electric field Eb:
where rm ¼ 2.25 mm is the effective radius of the probe and I0 the
collected current of corona discharge.
4S0 ¼ S$E$ε0 (5)

Results and discussion

4S1 ¼ C0 $Vb (6)
The method of measurements is applied to the corona discharge
C0 is the capacity between the probe collector (P) and the bias plate
in our laboratory-scaled WPESP. The measurements are carried out
(E) given by Ref. [12]
for various parameters such as:
  
r
C0 ¼ 4r$ε0 1:07944 þ 0:5$ln 1 þ (7)  the number of the active wires n;
2g
 the air flow velocity v;
 the polarity and the strength of the applied corona voltage V;
22 H. Ait Said et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 73 (2015) 19e25

Fig. 3. Measured inception corona voltage versus the number of discharging wires.

Fig. 2. Measured current ration I/I0 as a function of the bias voltage Vb for the negative
corona.
EðþÞ ¼ 31:5  V  153:5½kV=m (13)

Currentevoltage characteristics I ¼ f(V)

EðÞ ¼ 15:8  V þ 113:6½kV=m (14)
Characteristics currentevoltage I ¼ f(V) are measured with the The threshold voltage measured in positive and negative po-
method fully described in Refs. [13,14] in using 13 identical polished larities can deduct the threshold fields of the WPESP:
wires of 0.200 mm radius. In non-uniform field the inter relation- Ei(þ) ¼ 224.5 kV/m and Ei() ¼ 315 kV/m and the difference is DEi/
ship current voltage of the corona discharge is the one described by Ei ¼ 28%.
Townsend [15]:

Current density J and electric field E

Using the Equation (11), the current density at the collector of

I ¼ KmVðV  Vi Þ (12)
the WPESP is deduced by measuring the corona current with the
probe collector, when the polarization voltage is Vb ¼ 0. In this case
where K is the geometric factor, m the ion mobility in the drift re-
the number of the wires of the WPESP is n ¼ 13.
gion and Vi the threshold voltage. The discharge current increases
The flow of air through the WPESP affects the EHD flux pro-
with the applied voltage when it exceeds the threshold voltage
duced by the corona discharge and thus modifies the distributions
until the gas breakdown. Vi is deduced from the measurements of
of the current density J and the electric field E. In fact, the measured
the DC corona currentevoltage characteristics and according to the
J and E at the plate collector increase linearly with the velocity v for
number n of discharging wires, it remained constant for n > 5 and
equal to 12.0 kV for positive corona and 12.8 kV for negative corona
as shown in Fig. 3. This result confirms the predicted Cooperman's
theory [7] widely used in the WPESPs process. The breakdown
voltage Vb is also measured without primary air flow and we have
obtained Vb ¼ 43.6 kV for the positive corona and Vb ¼ 43.2 kV for
the negative corona. The measured pressure, temperature and
relative humidity of the ambient air during the experience are
respectively P ¼ (1  105 ± 3  102) Pa, T ¼ 32.1  C and Hr ¼ 52%.
The minimum field Ei at the wires surface can be determined
using the equations (1) and (2) and we obtained a value of
Ei(þ) ¼ 5650 kV/m for the positive corona and Ei() ¼ 6027 kV/m for
the negative corona. The difference is DEi/Ei ¼ 6% between the two
polarities.
The electric field at the plane collector is measured using the
probe by varying the corona applied voltage V in ambient air
without primary air flow as shown in Fig. 4 for the positive and
negative corona. The measured field increases linearly with the
corona voltage and this result was also found in coaxial cylinders
[14], wire-to-plane [11] and Pointe -to-plane geometry [9]. Linear
laws from the curves E (þ) and E (), are respectively obtained, for
positive and negative polarities and are given by the following
equations: Fig. 4. Variation of electric field for negative and positive corona.
 H. Ait Said et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 73 (2015) 19e25 23

Fig. 7. Normal current density at the WPESP collector versus the inlet air velocity for
Fig. 5. Normal current density at the WPESP collector versus the inlet air velocity for various negative applied corona voltages.
various positive applied corona voltage.

It should be noted that the current density J and electric field E

the positive corona as shown respectively in Figs. 5 and 6. However, measured at the WPESP collector are normal and the measure-
these two parameters decrease with v for the negative corona, ments allowed to determine the charge density r and the normal
Figs. 7 and 8. The explanation of this corona behaviour lies in the body force F. The value of the mobility is taken equal to
interaction of the electro hydrodynamic (EHD) secondary flow m ¼ 2  104 m2/V s for the positive ions [14] and for negative ions
produced by the corona discharge with the primary flow of air in we have used the value given by Ref. [18] and equal to
the WPESP. The negative corona discharge is known to be non- m ¼ 2  104 m2/V s:
stationary. Especially this discharge is known to produce Trichel
pulses [16] and tufts that move along the active wires leading to a J
spatially and temporally varying discharge current. This effect is of r¼ (15)
mE
great importance in influencing the EHD flow corona. Leonard G. L.
et al. [17] in their experiments demonstrate that the positive corona F ¼ rE (16)
discharge interacts with the flow of a WPESP to produce a non-
turbulent secondary flow in a plane perpendicular to the Figs. 9 and 10 show the variations of the charge density r in the
discharge wires. On the other hand, the negative corona discharge plane space of WPESP with the air flow for positive and negative
is responsible for producing both secondary flow in a plane parallel polarities. It is noticed that there are the same variations of the
to the discharging wires and also turbulence. current density and the electric field as shown respectively in
Figs. 11 and 12. On the other hand, the force F at the collector of
WPESP plane remains practically constant with the velocity v. In

Fig. 6. Electric field at the WPESP collector versus the inlet air velocity for various Fig. 8. Electric field at the WPESP collector versus the inlet air velocity for various
positive applied corona voltages. negative applied corona voltages.
24 H. Ait Said et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 73 (2015) 19e25

Fig. 9. Space charge density at the WPESP collector versus the inlet air velocity for Fig. 11. Body force at the WPESP collector versus the inlet air velocity for various
various positive applied corona voltages. positive applied corona voltages.

other words, the air flow through the WPESP can modify the EHD air flow, the lower the electric field of the wind. This indicates that
flow but the force remains constant. in the negative corona discharge, the speed of the injected me-
At a given voltage, the discharge current is higher with the chanical wind dominates electrical wind speed, that is to say that
negative polarity. This could be explained by the difference be- the field lines derived from the wires will expand in the flow di-
tween the apparent mobility of negative charge carriers compared rection. This suggests that electric wind has a negligible influence
to positive ones. In the case of positive corona, it is noted that when on the precipitation phenomenon. On the other hand, the collection
the flow is more accentuated, the greater the electric field, that is to efficiency is better in the negative corona discharge.
say there is a strong local acceleration of the particles, this again
shows that the electric wind is dominant. It is more important in a
Conclusion
positive corona discharge. The electrical wind speed is greater than
the speed of the air flow because the positive discharge has many
In this article, measurements of the current density and the
streamers in its ionization zone. This explains the surplus gener-
electric field have been carried out with high precision at the cir-
ated in the ply speed of wires because the streamers also induce
cular polarized surface probe depending on the velocity of the air
electrical wind. It is generally accepted that the presence of the ion
flow.
wind or speed difference between the ions and charged particles
The results show that the method is reliable when applied to
within their PES reduced collection efficiency by increasing the
wire-to-plate electrostatic precipitator taking into account the ve-
level of turbulence. For negative corona, the higher the speed of the
locity of the air flow and with neglecting the turbulence due to the

Fig. 10. Space charge density at the WPESP collector versus the inlet air velocity for Fig. 12. Body force at the WPESP collector versus the inlet air velocity for various
various negative applied corona voltages. negative applied corona voltages.
 H. Ait Said et al. / Journal of Electrostatics 73 (2015) 19e25 25

electric wind. However, the electric force F at the collector of WPESP [5] H. Nouri, N. Zouzou, E. Moreau, L. Dascalescu, Y. Zebboudj, Effect of relative
humidity on currentevoltage characteristics of an electrostatic precipitator,
remains substantially constant regardless of the flow velocity.
J. Electrostat. 70 (2012) 20e24.
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electrode field E. So that the corona proprieties are a function of E electrohydrodynamic flows, Phys. Fluids 10 (1998) 1742e1756.
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(2000) 211e218.
[14] Y. Zebboudj, G. Hartmann, Current and electric field measurements in coaxial
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