Influence of humidity on charge density and electric field in electrostatic precipitators

A mathematical model based on the solution of the governing set of equations for precipitation in humid air is proposed to calculate the spatial distribution of the ion charge density, electric field and particle charge density in pipe-type precipitators. The proposed model takes into account the effect of humidity on the onset voltage and the mobility of negative ions which are the main factors that control these spatial distributions. The calculated charge density and field distributions agree reasonably with those predicted earlier. The calculated current-voltage characteristics of the precipitator at different humidity values agreed satisfactorily with those measured experimentally.