High Voltage Applications

1- Introduction

Electrostatics is currently found at the basis of many major industries related to environment preservation,
communications, processing of mineral ore resources, and so on.

In the majority of these industries, the unique properties of high-voltage electrostatic fields and forces are
utilized to collect, direct, deposit, separate, or select very small or lightweight particles.

The principles of application of electrostatics are discussed for the following selected industries:

 Electrostatic Precipitator
 Electrostatic Separation
 Electrostatic Painting
 Ozone Generation
 2- Electrostatic Precipitator

What is an Electrostatic Precipitator?

An electrostatic precipitator (ESP) is defined as a filtration device that is
used to remove fine particles like smoke and fine dust from the flowing
gas. It is the commonly used device for air pollution control. They are
used in industries like steel plants, thermal energy plants.
Two systems of electrodes are used in electrostatic precipitators to
obtain an inhomogeneous electric field: a wire conductor enclosed in
a cylindrical pipe (pipe-type precipitators), or a row of wire
conductors located between plates (plate- or duct-type precipitators).

Working Principle of Electrostatic Precipitator

It consists of two sets of electrodes: positive and negative. The negative electrodes are in the form of a wire mesh,
and the positive electrodes are plates. These electrodes are vertically placed and are alternate to each other.
 2- Electrostatic Precipitator

The negative terminal of the high voltage DC source is used to

connect the negative electrodes, and the positive terminal of
the DC source is used to connect the positive plates. To ionize
the medium between the negative and the positive electrode, a
certain distance is maintained between the positive, negative
electrode and the DC source resulting in a high voltage
gradient. The medium that is used between the two electrodes
is air. There might be corona discharge around the electrode
rods or the wire mesh due to the high negativity of negative
charges.
The entire system is enclosed in a metallic container containing an inlet for flue gases and an outlet for filtered
gases. There are plenty of free electrons as the electrodes are ionized, which interact with the dust particles of the
gas, making them negatively charged. These particles move towards positive electrodes and fall off due
to gravitational force. The flue gas is free from the dust particles as it flows through the electrostatic precipitator
and is discharged to the atmosphere through the chimney.
 3- Electrostatic Separation

What is Electrostatic Separator?

Electrostatic Separations separate one material
from another by exploiting the difference in
electrical conductivity.

An electrostatic separator is a device for

separating particles by mass in a low energy
charged beam (Like Electrostatic Precipitator).

It has 3 types based on charging method:

1- Charging by contact and frictional electrification
2- Charging by ion or electron bombardment
3- Charging by conductive induction
 3- Electrostatic Separation

Working Principal of Separator?

Generally, electrostatic charges are used to attract or
repel differently charged material. When electrostatic
separation uses the force of attraction to sort particles,
conducting particles stick to an oppositely charged object,
such as a metal drum, thereby separating them from the
particle mixture. When this type of beneficiation uses
repelling force, it is normally employed to change the
trajectory of falling objects to sort them into different
places. This way, when a mixture of particles falls past a
repelling object, the particles with the correct charge fall
away from the other particles when they are repelled by
the similarly charged object.
 4- Electrostatic Painting/Coating

1- What is Electrostatic Painting

Electrostatic coating is a manufacturing process that
employs charged particles to more efficiently paint a workpiece.
Paint, in the form of either powdered particles or atomized
liquid, is initially projected towards a conductive workpiece
using normal spraying methods, and is then accelerated toward
the work piece by a powerful electrostatic charge.

It has mainly 3 Types:

(a) Electrostatic separator based on charging by contact
and frictional electrification.
(b) Electrostatic separator based on charging by ion or
electron bombardment.
(c) Electrostatic seljarator based on conductive charging.
 4- Electrostatic Painting/Coating

2- How does it work?

In its simplest form, an electrostatic coating operation is
visualized as taking place in the following manner:
• The object to be coated is grounded and supported so
that its surface can be approached without
obstruction.
• The coating material, after being charged, is sprayed
into the space above the surface in the form of finely
divided particles (As Figure 19.5).
• There is an attraction of the particles to the surface
and, as a result, they move toward and accumulate on
the surface to form the coating.
 5- Ozone Generation

What is Ozone?
Ozone is a virtually colorless gas with an acrid odor and very strong oxidiz ing properties.
Ozone is very toxic to humans and animals, causes serious damage to plant life, and
produces deterioration in many materials.
This property makes it a very powerful bactericide and viricide as well as a strong
bleaching agent.
The ozone molecule is only moderately stable and, in the absence of oxidizable substances,
will decay to form stable diatomic oxygen. The instability of ozone has the consequence
that it can be neither stored nor transported over distances requiring long periods of time.
This means it must be produced on site when and where it is required, which has the added
environmental and safety advantages of not having to store or transport potentially
dangerous chemicals in large quantities
 5- Ozone Generation

How to Generate Ozone?

The traditional way of producing ozone is by means
of dielectric barrier discharge or so-called silent
electrical discharge.
Dry feed gas (either oxygen or air) is passed through
a narrow discharge gap. One side of the gap is
formed by a grounded electrode, the other by a
dielectric, normally glass, in contact with a high-
voltage electrode (Fig. 19.17).
When high voltage at high frequency is applied to
the high-voltage electrode, ozone is produced.

Any electrical discharge, or spark will create ozone. The spark will split the oxygen molecule (O2) found in
ambient air into elemental oxygen (O). These Oxygen atoms will quickly bind to another oxygen molecule (O2)
to form ozone (O3). (Like what happens in Lightning)