This study compared the collection efficiency of a two-stage electrostatic precipitator (ESP) with a lightweight PET film-coated carbon electrode collector plate, depending on the relative humidity of the exhaust gas and the applied voltage to the pre-charger. It was confirmed that the onset voltage at which corona discharge occurs decreases and the discharge current decreases at the same voltage as the relative humidity increases. On the other hand, even though there was almost no change in the diameter of the particles generated depending on the relative humidity, the efficiency was higher at the same voltage as the relative humidity increased. In addition, by applying a two-stage ESP structure, the collection efficiency was higher than that of a single-stage electrostatic precipitator under the same conditions. The ESP using the carbon electrode coated with PET film used in this study is expected to be effective in various aspects such as weight and in the current situation where environmental regulations are rapidly tightening.

An electrostatic precipitator (ESP) has a low pressure drop and a high collection efficiency but its collection efficiency can be reduced due to dust accumulation on the collection plates during long-term operations. In order to maintain the initial dust collection efficiency, it is necessary to periodically clean the collection plates. The common cleaning methods are using physical impacts or water sprays. These cleaning methods can lead to damage to the collection plate or generate wastewater. Herein, we implemented an electrodynamic screen (EDS) for ESP cleaning and evaluated its surface cleaning performance of particles. The EDS is an electrostatic system that can electrostatically repel particles on surfaces, allowing it to clean the ESP without causing damage and wastewater generation. Our evaluation included the analysis of the effects of AC voltage characteristics, electrode configuration and environmental conditions on the cleaning performance of the EDS with the aim of achieving effective surface cleaning. It has been demonstrated that activating the EDS cleans up to 65% of the particles on the surface, which indicates about 94% of our target cleaning zone.

We present the development of a wetcyclone sampler designed for the sampling of airborne bacteria. The wetcyclone design involves a combination of two traditional cyclone shapes and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis to validate its effectiveness in terms of pressure drop and collection efficiency. The wetcyclone exhibits a collection efficiency of over 90% for bacteria, specifically targeting Staphylococcus aureus. Additionally, the wetcyclone enables continuous bioaerosol sampling using a liquid medium (deionized water), demonstrating a concentration ratio exceeding >105 and a stable microbial recovery rate of 81.9%. The application of real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and the colony counting method ensures precise measurement of the concentration ratio and microbial recovery rate.

In our previous study, a wire-plate type electrostatic precipitator (ESP) was developed to collect bioaerosols of 100 nm size. In the study, various flow rates (40 ~ 100 L/min) and applied voltages (3 ~ 10 kV) were tested for experiment. In this study, numerical analysis was performed for the ESP of the previous study with the same flow rates and applied voltages, but with varying the size of bioaerosols to 0.04 ~ 2.5 ㎛. Overall, the numerical analysis results well predicted the experimental data. Bioaerosols of 0.1 ~ 0.5 ㎛ showed the minimum collection efficiency for all conditions because of low charge number. The effect of the ionic wind generated by the corona discharge was calculated. However, the ionic wind did not affect much the collection efficiency. The aerosol collection in the ESP of this study was due to the electrostatic force generated by particle charge in the electric field. This numerical study on the ESP can be used for the design and optimization of higher flow rate (> 100 L/min) ESP.