This work was carried out to investigate the mechanisms of solid-solid separation in electrostatic precipitators. The separation of mixture of pure compounds from each other and the components of an industrial dust has been studied in a wire-and-duct type laboratory-scale electrostatic precipitator. Particle size distribution affected the separation most, but both the dielectric constant and electrical resistivity of the dust can be important. Operating voltage and air velocity in the precipitator also affected the separation along the precipitator length. The SRI computer model of precipitator performance gave reasonable predictions of separation under conditions of negligible re-entrainment. An apparently unique relationship between separation and recovery was experimentally observed with components which do not re-entrain appreciably; a similar behaviour is theoretically predicted from the Deutsch Equation of collection efficiency or the SRI model.

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