We often get asked how electrostatic air cleaners work.
It can get fairly technical, so we decided to do a demonstration using balloons as smoke particles. Most people are familiar with rubbing a balloon on their hair, and then it sticks to a wall. This is the same basic way an electrostatic air cleaner works.
In this scenario, your hair acts as the ionizer providing the static electricity to charge the balloon. In an air cleaner, this would be around 10,000 volts. Once the balloon has received a charge, it will stick to the wall. The wall acts as the ground plate collection cell. The cell has a high voltage plate between each ground plate. Their arms are acting as the high voltage plate that helps push the “balloon” to the wall. This is very efficient and will collect particles of all sizes as long as they get a charge.
When there are too many balloons to all get a charge as they pass through, a second pass is needed. This is why a double pass system is beneficial in a heavy smoke application.
When the wall gets covered with too many balloons, it will no longer collect additional balloons. At this point, cleaning is required to prevent blow through.
If the power supply fails to provide voltage to the ionizer, the balloons will not get a charge causing them not to be collected on the wall. If your air cleaner requires cleaning or has a bad power supply, give Bee Clean a call at triple eight, four five one, zero eight forty-four!
