Processo de separação chumbo/ar usando separador ciclônico: modelagem e simulação.

Abstract

In the automotive batteries manufacturing process some lead particles can be released in the air causing risks to the environment, to the health of the workers and to the community around the factory. Generally, exhaust fans are usually used in the factory sheds that direct air to be treated by a bag filter. A periodic maintenance is required to these filters. To reduce the maintenance time of the filter or replacement of the bags it was proposed to use a cyclonic separator as a pretreatment for the filter. For this, it was necessary to study the lead / air flow inside the separator to evaluate the feasibility of this application. In this sense, the cyclonic separator was analyzed using computational fluid dynamics to evaluate the influence of some geometric aspects of the cyclonic separator on the separation efficiency of the lead particles of the air. The effect of the concentration and diameter of the lead particles was also evaluated. The ANSYS CFX ® 15 software package was used, adopting the Eulerian-Eulerian approach, considering the particle model. The standard κ-ε turbulence model was used. For the treatment of the dispersed phase (lead particles) the kinetic theory of granular flows was adopted. The results of the simulations indicated that the mathematical model used was able to predict the physical phenomena involved in the separation process using the cyclonic separator. It was observed that in most of the cases evaluated the separation efficiency lead particles remained above 70%, which indicates that the equipment under study showed a favorable separation behavior. The results showed that the cyclonic separator was promising as a pretreatment for the bag filter in these cases.