Enhanced precipitation efficiency of electrostatic precipitators by means of impulse energization

As the limits on solid particulate emission become more severe in most industrialized countries, higher performance is required from electrostatic precipitation systems. It has been verified that by applying an impulse voltage instead of the conventional rectified voltage to the precipitator, the collection efficiency can be increased. To assess the benefit of the impulse energization with different coals, an experimental research was performed at a 35 MWe thermal power plant. Two technologies for the impulse power supplies were tested over 5000 hours of operation. The results of the tests, performed according to ASME standard, have show the great advantage of the impulse energization compared to the conventional energization in reducing the penetration factor to 1-2*10/sup -3/ with an absorbed power reduced from about 0.5 Wh/Nm/sup 3/ to about 0.1 Wh/Nm/sup 3/.<>