The advancement of pollution control technologies is being treated as a high priority in the U.S. One important step involves the development of ultra-high performance systems for the removal of fine particles from processing streams or plant effluents. In this program, LSR Technologies, Inc., will investigate and develop a novel electrostatic precipitator (ESP) concept with controlled solids reentrainment and turbulence intensity. The concept eliminates deficiencies generic to the conventional ESP and associated with: high or low dust resistivity; particulate space charge effects; rapping reentrainment due to mixing of gas and broken dust layers; and seepage due to leakage from below the precipitator over the hoppers. It also reduces the intensity of turbulence in the ESP, in turn improving gas/solids separation efficiency. The Phase I research will focus on proof-of-principle testing which will include an analysis of the effect of controlling turbulence intensity on precipitator performance. The Phase II effort would include extensive testing at the pilot-scale level.
