Numerical simulation on electrical-intensified separator: The development of the flow field and its separation performance

Abstract

Wastewater treatment for improving energy efficiency to promote water resource recycling is required globally. Centrifugation technology has been widely applied in industrial wastewater pretreatment. However, conventional hydrocyclones induce high breakage rate of droplets owing to the high shear force. Therefore, the electrical-intensified separator was designed. It provides preseparation and strengthened environments and applies electrical field to intensify separation effect. A simulation of the separator was conducted. The separation performance was investigated, and the reason for low energy loss was discussed. Simultaneously, the simulation was verified through experiment. The results show that the electrical-intensified separator not only increases efficiency by 20 % but also decreases dynamic energy loss by >120 Pa under V = 5 m/s compared to the conventional hydrocyclone. And numerical results agree with experiment. The separator decreases the rate of droplet breakup and enhances separation due to the separation with progressive process, making the region distribution of tangential velocity wider and greater. Additionally, the role of electrical field intensifies the droplet migration, which is conducive to increase the movement of mixture in flow field. Therefore, the dynamic pressure loss of this separator is significantly lower than conventional hydrocyclone.