Particles in charge: An experimental and numerical study on the tribo-electric charging of pneumatically conveyed powders

“To face the major challenges of our time, the United Nations has formulated 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SGE). To achieve these goals, the food sector can play an important part. Because improving its effciency would reduce food pricing and possibly hunger. Furthermore, the food sector accountants for thirty percent of the energy consumption, twenty-two percent of the greenhouse gas emission and approximately seventy percent of all water extracted from rivers.
One way to improve its effciency is to let mankind change the source of their protein intake from livestock to plants. This is given in by the fact that approximately 6 kg of plant protein is needed for 1 kg of animal protein. However, extraction of these proteins from the crude feedstock sometimes requires as much energy as needed when the proteins were produced by livestock instead. This is mainly caused by the copious amounts of water needed in these extraction processes. The water is used to dissolve the feedstock to enable separation of the end product. However, to regain a dry product, the water is removed via evaporation which is an energy intensive process. Consequently, if the separation could be obtained without using water, a lot of energy is saved as no dehydration is required. One such dry separation method is tribo-electric separation and is the subject of this thesis. This method exploits the tribo-electric effect which is the electrostatic charging of two bodies of different material when they touch. This is experienced in daily life when, for example, combing your hair. Because different materials charge differently, this can be used as driving force in separation.”

(Citaat: Korevaar, M.W. – Particles in charge: An experimental and numerical study on the tribo-electric charging of pneumatically conveyed powders thesis (2016))