Patent Application
20100147151
This application claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 2008-0126184, filed on Dec. 11, 2008 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate to an electric precipitator for collection of foreign materials or pollutants such as dust by electric attraction.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electric precipitator is generally mounted on an air conditioner. More particularly, the electric precipitator is arranged on an air flow path to collect foreign materials or pollutants such as dust (hereinafter, referred to as ‘pollutant’) contained in air passing through the electric precipitator by electric attraction.
A conventional electric precipitator generally has a double-stage type structure to precipitate a pollutant, including a charging part which is positioned upstream of an air flow direction to charge a pollutant, and a dust collection part which is positioned downstream of the air flow direction to precipitate the charged pollutant therein.
In such a double-stage type electric precipitator, the charging part includes a discharge electrode in a wire form to fabricate an anode and a pair of ground electrodes, which are located at both sides of the discharge electrode and spaced apart from the discharge electrode at a certain interval in order to fabricate a cathode. Also, the dust collection part includes plural high voltage electrodes and plural low voltage electrodes, which are alternately arranged and spaced from one another.
However, in order to generate a discharge between an electric wire and a ground electrode, such a conventional electric precipitator requires a considerably high voltage to be applied to the discharge electrode, thus requiring a large scale power supply to apply high voltage and increasing electric power consumption.
Furthermore, since high voltage is applied to the discharge electrode as described above, the discharge electrode must be sufficiently spaced from the dust collection part in consideration of safety, and therefore, it is difficult to reduce a width of the electric precipitator below a certain level.
Therefore, it is an aspect of the invention to provide an electric precipitator fabricated with a considerably small width so as to more efficiently utilize a space for installation thereof.
Additional aspects and/or advantages will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.
The foregoing and/or other aspects of the present invention are achieved by providing a high voltage electrode and a low voltage electrode arranged apart from each other at a desired interval in the precipitator. The high voltage electrode includes a charging part to charge the pollutant, and a dust collection part spaced from the charging part and positioned downstream from the charging part in an air flow direction to precipitate the charged pollutant therein.
The high voltage electrode includes: a pair of film parts which are made of a non-conductive material and are combined together; a first electrode layer which is arranged to be exposed outside the film parts to form the charging part; and a second electrode layer which is located between the film parts to form the dust collection part.
The first electrode layer is placed on one of the paired film parts while the other of the film parts has a through-hole to expose the first electrode layer.
The first electrode layer may be formed by a pair of electrode layers which are arranged on the paired film parts, respectively, and each of the film parts may have a through-hole to expose the first electrode layer arranged on the film parts.
The high voltage electrode has the same width as that of the low voltage electrode and these electrodes are alternately arranged with and spaced from each other.
The high voltage electrode includes a first high voltage electrode which comprises the charging part and the dust collection part, and a second high voltage which includes, only the charging part. On the other hand, the low voltage electrode includes a first low voltage electrode having the same width as that of the first high voltage electrode and a second low voltage electrode having the same width as that of the second high voltage electrode.
The first high voltage electrode is spaced from the first low voltage electrode, while at least one pair of the second high voltage electrode and the second low voltage electrode is arranged between the first high voltage electrode and the first low voltage electrode.
The first electrode layer may be fabricated using conductive fibers.
The electric precipitator according to the aspect of the present invention may further include a power supply to provide electric power to the high voltage electrode, wherein the power supply applies electric power with different voltages to the charging part and the dust collection part.
Alternatively, the electric precipitator may further include a power supply to provide electric power to the high voltage electrode, as well as a resistor to connect the charging part and the dust collection part, wherein the power supply is connected only to either the charging part or the dust collection part.
The foregoing and/or other aspects may also be achieved by providing a high voltage electrode to collect a pollutant, including a charging part which is positioned to charge the pollutant, and a dust collection part which is spaced from the charging part and is positioned downstream relative to the charging part in an air flow direction to precipitate the charged pollutant therein.
Briefly, the electric precipitator according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes the charging part to charge a pollutant on the high voltage electrode and the dust collection part to precipitate the charged pollutant, so that the electric precipitator has a considerably reduced width and therefore can more efficiently utilize space for installation thereof.
In addition, the electric precipitator according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention has the first electrode layer for fabrication of the charging part, which is made of conductive fibers to generate a discharge even at a low voltage, so that a small scale power supply may be used and electric power required to operate the electric precipitator may be considerably reduced.
These and/or other aspects of the invention will become apparent and more readily appreciated from the following description of the embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which:
Reference will now be made in detail to the embodiments, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to the like elements throughout. The embodiments are described below to explain the present invention by referring to the figures.
An electric precipitator according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
As shown in
As shown in
As shown in
In the exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the first electrode layer may be fabricated using fine conductive fibers such as carbon fibers with a diameter of several to several tens of micrometers (□), carbon nanotubes, etc. When the fine conductive fibers are used to fabricate the first electrode layer 22, the first electrode layer 22 may generate a discharge even at a low voltage, thereby decreasing a capacity of a power supply P for the electric precipitator 100 and reducing electric power consumption.
The first electrode layer 22 may be positioned on one of the paired film parts while the other of the film parts may have a through-hole 21a to expose the first electrode layer 22. According to the embodiment shown in
Accordingly, applying high voltage positive power to the high voltage electrode 20 may generate a discharge between the first electrode layer 22 and the low voltage electrode 30 to positively charge a pollutant contained in air passing through the first electrode layer 22 and the low voltage electrode. The positively charged pollutant as well as the air may flow between the second electrode layer 23 and the low voltage electrode 30 so that the positively charged pollutant moves to the low voltage electrode 30 at a relatively low voltage, thus being trapped therein.
As disclosed above, if the charging part 20a fabricated by the first electrode layer 22 made of conductive fibers in the high voltage electrode 20 serves as a discharge electrode in a double-stage type electric precipitator, the first electrode layer 22 made of the conductive fibers can easily generate a discharge even at a low voltage so that a distance between the first electrode layer 22 and the second electrode layer 23 may be reduced. Accordingly, a space for installation of a discharge electrode and a ground electrode provided in a double-stage type electric precipitator may be omitted, although a width of the high voltage electrode 20 is slightly increased to arrange the first electrode layer 22 thereon. Therefore, the overall width of the electric precipitator 100 may be considerably reduced, compared to the typical double-stage type electric precipitator.
Hereinafter, an electric precipitator according to another embodiment of the present invention shown in
As shown in
The high voltage electrodes 20A and 20B include: a first high voltage electrode 20A, including a charging part 20a′ which is positioned upstream of an air flow direction to charge a pollutant and a dust collection part 20b′ to precipitate the charged pollutant in the low voltage electrodes 30A and 30B; and a second high voltage electrode 20B, including only another dust collection part 20b′ without a configuration for the charging part 20a′. On the other hand, the low voltage electrodes 30A and 30B include a first low voltage electrode 30A having the same width as that of the first high voltage electrode 20A, as well as a second low voltage electrode 30B having the same width as that of the second high voltage electrode 20B. In this regard, the second high voltage electrode 20B is paired with the second low voltage electrode 30B and multiple pairs of these electrodes 20B and 30B may be arranged between the first high voltage electrode 20A and the first low voltage electrode 30A. As for the exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a pair of the second high voltage electrode 20B and the second low voltage electrode 30B is alternately arranged between the first high voltage electrode 20A and the first low voltage electrode 30A.
The first high voltage electrode 20A includes: a pair of film parts 21′ which are made of a non-conductive material and are combined together; a first electrode layer 22′ which is arranged to be exposed outside at least one of the film parts 21′ to form the charging part 20a′; and a second electrode layer 23′ which is located between the film parts 21′ to form the dust collection part 20b′. On the other hand, the second high voltage electrode 20B includes: a pair of film parts 21′ which are made of a non-conductive material and are combined together; and a second electrode layer 23′ which is located between the film parts 21′ to form the dust collection part 20b′. As for this embodiment of the present invention, the first electrode layer 22′ and the second electrode layer 23′ are separately connected to a power supply P to receive electric power with different voltages, as shown in
Again referring to
Therefore, applying electric power to both the first high voltage electrode 20A and the second high voltage electrode 20B may generate a discharge between the first high voltage electrode 20A and the first low voltage electrode 30A to positively charge a pollutant contained in air passing through the first voltage electrode 20A and the first low voltage electrode 30A. The positively charged pollutant as well as the air may flow between the second electrode layer 23′ and the low voltage electrodes 30A and 30B so that the positively charged pollutant moves to both the electrodes 30A and 30B at a relatively low voltage, thus being trapped therein.
In the embodiment shown in
In addition, the embodiment shown in
The above exemplary embodiments describe that the low voltage electrode 30 is grounded to function as a ground electrode provided in a double-stage type electric precipitator, simultaneously with the basic role of the low voltage electrode. However, embodiments of the present invention are not particularly limited thereto. For instance, it is of course possible to include an alternative ground electrode in the electric precipitator except for the low voltage electrode.
Furthermore, the above exemplary embodiments describe that positive power at a high voltage is applied to the charging part 20a in order to positively charge the pollutant, however, embodiments of the present invention are not particularly limited thereto. For instance, another embodiment as shown in
Although a few embodiments have been shown and described, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes may be made in these embodiments without departing from the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined in the claims and their equivalents.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-2008-126184 | Dec 2008 | KR | national |
