Simulation on a novel micron-array inertial impactor for submicron and ultrafine particle separation

Abstract

The particulate matter (PM), which was put forward in 1997 by US, had taken more and more attention due to the influence on human health. Although the mass concentration, number concentration and chemical composition of PM were still major research directions, how to collect these PMs more efficiently becomes critical. Inertial impactor is an effective separation device, however, due to different motion states of PM[Formula: see text] and PM[Formula: see text] in the flow field, the inertial impactor which can separate PM[Formula: see text] from other PMs has not been fabricated. In this work, the motion states for both submicron and ultrafine particles were studied by using classical theory of channel aerodynamic, and a novel micron-array inertial impactor was designed and simulated for the first time. Besides, the influence of some characteristic parameters (W, T, S, Dc, etc.) on particle collection efficiency were researched and discussed through simulation results. This novel structure can be easily fabricated by MEMS technology or laser direct writing and also can be widely used in particle separation or flexible sensor fields.