A new engineering approach to cyclone design for cotton gins

Abstract

The prediction of emission concentrations from cyclone collectors is integral to the permitting of agricultural facilities including cotton gins. One method for predicting emission concentrations utilizes fractional efficiency curves (FEC's). A new engineering procedure to develop the fractional efficiency curves was developed, and the new and more accurate fractional efficiency curves were generated by using this procedure. The FEC's were used to compare performance of the four cyclone designs currently being used by cotton gins to abate PM10. The performance characteristics of the 1D2D, 1D3D, 2D2D and Barrel cyclones were evaluated using particulate matter from three types of cotton gin trash. The results suggest that the 1D3D cyclone is the best design for fine dust or trash without lint fiber, and the 1D2D design is better than the 1D3D and 2D2D cyclones when the tests were conducted with high lint content trash. The test results were used to define the performance characteristics of different cyclone designs. With these characteristics, cotton gins can utilize different cyclone designs for different processing streams to minimize PM concentrations emitted. The effect of smoothness of cyclone inner surface on its emission concentration was tested. The results were used to quantify this effect.