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ARS Home » Plains Area » Las Cruces, New Mexico » Cotton Ginning Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #280601

Title: Dust cyclone technology for gins – A literature review

Author
item Funk, Paul
item Baker, Kevin

Submitted to: Journal of Cotton Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/9/2012
Publication Date: 2/28/2013
Citation: Funk, P.A., Baker, K.D. 2013. Dust cyclone technology for gins – A literature review. Journal of Cotton Science. 17(1):40-51.

Interpretive Summary: The cotton ginning industry has been proactive in developing technology to comply with ever-increasingly stringent environmental laws. Part of this work involves adapting technology from other industries to meet the unique demands of this one. This paper is unique in its inter-disciplinary approach, reviewing over one hundred manuscripts from agricultural, mechanical and chemical engineering and environmental science journals. The most important designs, mathematical and computer-based models and recent experimental work are summarized in this paper. Research in cyclones has been on-going for over a century. Improvements at this point are more likely to be incremental than radical, but improvements are still being sought due to the ubiquitous prominence of these devices. Additionally, energy conservation has become increasingly important.

Technical Abstract: Dust cyclone research leading to more efficient designs has helped the cotton ginning industry to comply with increasingly stringent air quality regulations governing fine particulate emissions. Future changes in regulations may require additional improvements in dust cyclone efficacy. This inter-disciplinary literature review presents a summary of dust cyclone designs, algebraic and computer models and recent experiments. As more sophisticated computational fluid dynamics has become affordable its use will become more common, but there will always be a need for model validation in the laboratory and field. Another observation expected to continue is the trend to emphasize a balance between collection efficacy and pressure requirements, as energy has become environmentally and economically more expensive.