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Electrostatistic Precipitation

Chung-Shin J. Yuan and Thomas T. Shen

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PRINCIPLES OF OPERATION
DESIGN METHODOLOGY AND CONSIDERATIONS
APPLICATIONS
PROBLEMS AND CORRECTIONS
EXPECTED FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
NOMENCLATURE
REFERENCES

1. INTRODUCTION

Electrostatic precipitation (ESP) is defined as the use of electrostatic forces to remove
charged solid particles or liquid droplets from gas streams in which the particles or
droplets are carried in suspension. It is one of the most popular and efficient particulate
control devices and accounts for about 95% of all utility particulate controls in the United
States (1). The first commercial electrostatic precipitator was designed by Walker and
Hutchings and installed at a lead smelter works at Baggily, North Wales in 1885. However,
this first attempt was not successful owing to inadequate power supply and poor proper-
ties of lead fume for electrostatic precipitation (i.e., small particle sizes, high temperature,
and high resistivity of the particles) (2).
The principle of electrostatic precipitation was first developed by Dr. Frederick G.
Cottrell, an American chemistry instructor at the University of California in Berkley.
Cottrell also developed the first successful commercial electrostatic precipitator in 1906,
which was installed at an acid manufacturing plant near Pinole, California (3). The first
US electrostatic precipitation patent was then issued in 1908 for which the original ESP
was a single-stage, cylindrical shape with a high-voltage electrode rod suspended in the
center of the cylinder. Since then, electrostatic precipitators have been used extensively
to remove both solid particles and liquid droplets from stationary combustion sources
and a variety of industrial processes.
The ESP that we are most familiar with is based on the two-stage precipitator prin-
ciple and developed in the 1930s. This allowed for reduction in ozone by utilizing the

From: Handbook of Environmental Engineering, Volume 1: Air Pollution Control Engineering
Edited by: L. K. Wang, N. C. Pereira, and Y.-T. Hung © Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJ
153