10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
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Using Comsol Multiphysics as a Tool to Predict Aerosol Deposition Spot Size of an Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP)
CALLE PREGER, Robert T Hallberg, Martin H Magnusson, Lund University
Abstract Number: 1204 Working Group: Instrumentation
Abstract Aerosol technology provides an efficient means of producing engineered nanoparticles with controlled size and compositions, deposited on arbitrary substrates using an electrostatic precipitator (ESP). For some applications, it is important to achieve precise control of the nanoparticle concentration on the substrate. The motivation for this work is partly to design a better ESP, and partly to test how well a simple model, run on a modern standard PC, can mimic actual nanoparticle behavior.
In this work, COMSOL Multiphysics was used to simulate deposition patterns of nanoparticles and to predict the deposition spot size of an ESP for varying gas flow (0.2–2.2 lpm), particle diameter (5–100 nm), deposition voltage (1–10 kV) and the height between aerosol inlet and substrate (5–40 mm). A simple relation based on these calculations has been obtained based on a cylindrical 2D model of the deposition chamber, while a full 3D model was used to test the validity of the simulation as well as to predict the exact shape of the spot. The model predictions were validated with electron microscopy by measuring the spot diameter based on the surface coverage as well as by 2D profiling of the concentration on the substrate. This study shows the possibilities of using a commercial available product to predict complex aerosol physics. It also validates a model to use when predicting the deposition spot size for an ESP.