A study of charging characteristics of binary mixture of polyolefin particles by using horizontal airflow to separate large and small particles

The charging characteristic of the binary mixture of particles is important for understanding the electrostatic discharging behavior of charged particles. However, most studies have focused on the charge polarity of particles rather than the specific charge level. This paper studied the charging characteristic of a binary mixture of polyethylene particles by using horizontal airflow to separate the large and small particles under different mass fractions and the initial charge-to-mass ratios of the small particle, and the effect of wall materials and the size ratios. The results indicate that the large and small particles tend to gain positive and negative charges, respectively, and the positive charge-to-mass ratio of the large particle can be greater than the absolute value of the negative one obtained in fluidizing the large particles alone. Increasing the initial charge-to-mass ratio of small particles and decreasing the size ratio decrease the positive charge level of the large particles. Moreover, the type of the wall material also alters the charge-to-mass ratio of large particles. Based on the single-particle collisional charging experiments, the magnitude and direction of charge transfer in the particle-particle and particle-wall collisional processes are determined.