Studies on Separation Efficiency and Energy Conservation Through Novel Finned Cyclone Separator

Abstract

In the present study, cylindrical portion of conventional (nonfinned) cyclone separator was reshaped by fixing triangular, semicircular, and rectangular cross section helical fins in order to make it as water wall having fin size 7 mm with fin pitch of 40 mm to improve its separation efficiency and to utilize the cyclone separator as heat exchanger. Fluid dynamic characteristics like axial velocity, tangential velocity, pressure drops were studied by varying the fin geometry (triangular/semicircular/rectangular). For the particles' size less than 3 μm, proposed cyclone separator with triangular helical fin was giving comparatively improved collection efficiency than other selected cyclone separators. Improvement in the collection efficiency of triangular fin-based cyclone separators was perceived from 5% to 10% over the conventional cyclone separator. Hence, helical fins with triangular in cross section were selected further for heat transfer and scale-up studies. It was observed that for the small barrel wall height (h = 400 mm) water temperature was enhanced by 4 °C, and with scale-up (making h = 800 mm) it was increased considerably around 15 °C. Thus based on improved separation efficiency to capture very-fine particulate matter (PM 2.5, which otherwise causes serious health issues) and considerable temperature gain of water noted at lab level scale-up study, triangular helical fins may be to fixed on the inner surface of barrel wall of conventional (nonfinned) cyclone separators in order to use them as heat exchanger for energy conservation in industrial applications.