Reduction of PM10 Emission from A Retrofitted Multicyclone

Abstract

Multi-cyclone is one of the particulate control systems commonly used in the industry due to its low capital, operating, and maintenance cost as well as its reliability under a wide range of operational conditions. Unfortunately, it has low performance in collecting fine particulate especially of less than 10 µm in diameter or PM10. Thus, this limitation motivated a cost-effective retrofit of the existing conventional multi-cyclone. The retrofit was performed by creating a more negative pressure at the dust hopper of a conventional multi-cyclone, by drawing out a small portion of the air using an Induced Draft Fan. The particulate emission concentration and overall collection efficiency of the unit at various effective inlet velocities ranging from 6.2 to 19.8 m/s with particulate loading of 30 mg/m³ of 100 µm sample size diameter of Palm Oil Mill Boiler Fly Ash were investigated in this study. Interestingly, the introduction of suction increased the overall performance of the multi-cyclone by 10 to 20%. The finding suggests that a simple retrofit managed to increase the overall performance of the conventional multi-cyclone even for PM10.