Synergistic electromagnetic confinement for high-efficiency PM2.5 removal in a spiral two-inlet ECP

• A spiral two-inlet ECP is designed by changing the number and arrangement of inlets. • Two-inlet ECP exhibits the best capture performance without electromagnetic field. • Electromagnetic confinement effect can improve the trapping of PM2.5. • Spiral two-inlet ECP demonstrates optimal performance with electromagnetic field. • The improvement caused by spiral two-inlet structure can reach 4.1%. Enhancing the removal performance of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in electrostatic cyclone precipitators (ECP) remains a critical challenge for industrial emission control. In this work, the structure of the ECP was optimized by introducing a novel spiral two-inlet configuration. A numerical multi-physics coupling model was developed to simulate particle dynamics, specifically investigating the electromagnetic confinement effect under varying voltages and magnetic induction intensities. Comparative results reveal that while elevating the working voltage enhances the dust-removal efficiency by over 15%, the spiral two-inlet ECP outperforms the conventional two-inlet counterpart, demonstrating greater stability and efficiency in high-voltage environments. Crucially, the study identifies a significant enhancement mechanism: the electromagnetic confinement effect. By exerting control over the trajectories of charged particles, this mechanism improves the removal efficiency by a substantial margin of 25%–35%. Those findings suggest that the spiral two-inlet design is highly suitable for high-voltage applications. This study can provide new ideas for ECP inlet structural improvement and insights into the profound removal of fine particles produced in fossil fuel combustion.