JPH09150076A - Air purifier - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To achieve thickness reduction and miniaturization by eliminating a float electrode. SOLUTION: A discharge electrode 11, an ionizer part 15 equipped with opposed electrodes 13 having protruding electrode parts 13a and arranged on both sides of the discharge electrode 11, a dust collection part 21 attracting ions or ionized dust by coulomb force and a voltage setting means 55 for setting the voltage applied to the opposed electrodes 13 so as to make the same lower than the voltage applied to the discharge electrode 11 by predetermined voltage are provided. By this constitution, an air purifier requires no float electrode and can be miniaturized and thinned.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vehicle or household air cleaner, and more particularly to an electric dust collector type air cleaner for collecting dust by charging dust.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For example, heater and ventilated
An air conditioner type air cleaner has a charging part (ionizer part) that charges dust particles entering the upstream side of the air flow path by corona discharge to clean the air. It is known that a dust collecting portion (collector) for collecting particles by electrostatic force is arranged on the downstream side.

For example, FIG. 14 shows Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-27.
It is an air cleaner disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 0744. The air purifier includes an ionizer unit 100 that charges dust and molecules, and a dust collecting unit 120 that electrically attracts and collects charged dust and the like.
At 0, the dust and the like passing therethrough are positively ionized by the discharge, and the negatively charged electrode is attracted and captured by the electric Coulomb attractive force by the negative electrode arranged on the downstream side.

In such an air purifier, ions generated in the counter electrodes 110, 110 constituting the ionizer section 100 and charged dust are moved to the dust collecting section 120 by Coulomb attraction, so that air is generated. Ion wind is generated.

[0005]

By the way, in this type of so-called auto-bias type air cleaner, the dust collecting section 12 is used.
The voltage is applied to 0 by supplying the discharge energy of the ionizer unit 100 to the metal part called the float electrode 130.

In this type of air cleaner, for example, 5 [kV] is applied from the high-voltage power supply 150 to the counter electrode 110, so that 2 [kV] is applied to the float electrode 130 by discharge.

However, a distance t of at least several mm is provided between the counter electrode 110 and the float electrode 130 of the ionizer section 100 and between the float electrode 130 and the dust collecting section 120 to prevent abnormal discharge. is required.

In other words, in the conventional auto bias type air cleaner, the ionizer section 100 and the counter electrode 11 are arranged.
Due to the structure in which the float electrode 130 is interposed between the zero electrode and 0, there is a limit to thinning and downsizing by the amount of the void required for the float electrode 130.

An object of the present invention is to provide an air purifier which can maintain the same dust collecting ability without requiring a float electrode and can be made thin and compact.

[0010]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the invention according to claim 1 has a discharge electrode and counter electrodes arranged on opposite sides of the discharge electrode so as to be cleaned. In an air cleaner provided with an ionizer part that charges dust in the air to ionize it, and a dust collecting part that attracts ions or ionized dust by Coulomb attraction, a surface facing the dust collecting part of the counter electrode. A plurality of protruding electrode portions having a sharp tip protruding toward the dust collecting portion side is formed at the end portion to be formed, and a voltage lower than the applied voltage to the discharge electrode by a predetermined voltage is applied to the counter electrode. An applied voltage setting means is connected and configured.

According to this invention, since the counter electrode has the protruding electrode portion, the discharge electrode can be easily discharged, and the voltage applied to the counter electrode by the voltage difference setting means is the voltage applied to the discharge electrode. Since the voltage is lowered by a predetermined voltage, the float electrode becomes unnecessary. As a result, it is possible to reduce the size, reduce the thickness, reduce the weight, and reduce the cost while maintaining the same dust collecting ability.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, the voltage setting means is configured as a Zener diode. According to the present invention, the voltage applied to the counter electrode can be made lower than the voltage applied to the discharge electrode by a predetermined voltage simply by adding the Zener diode.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, the protruding electrode portion of the counter electrode is formed in a substantially sawtooth shape in the extending direction of the counter electrode. According to this invention, since the protruding electrode having the sharp tip is directed to the dust collecting portion, the induced voltage is smoothly supplied to the high voltage side electrode of the dust collecting portion, and the same operation as the float electrode is performed. It is possible to maintain the dust collection performance and achieve compactness.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

1 and 2 show an example of a home air cleaner. In the air purifier 1, a prefilter 100, an electric dust collector 3, a power control unit 4, a fan 5, a short-circuit switch 6 and the like are arranged inside a case 2, and the case 2 is combined with a front case member 2a. A front panel 2c that is detachably assembled to the rear case member 2b and the front case member 2a and covers the storage location 7 of the electrostatic precipitator 3.
Composed of The air sucked from a suction portion (hereinafter referred to as an air suction slit) 8 provided at a lower portion of the front panel 2c by driving the fan 5 passes through the electrostatic precipitator 3, and then is provided at an upper portion of the front panel 2c. The air is blown out from the blown-out portion (hereinafter referred to as an air-blowing slit) 9.

As shown in FIG. 3, in the case 2 of the air cleaner 1, there are a pre-filter 100, an electric dust collector 3, a main filter 101, and a deodorizing activated carbon filter 103.
They are arranged in this order.

As shown in detail in FIG. 4, the electrostatic precipitator 3
Is an ionizer portion 15 having a counter electrode 13 facing the discharge electrode 11, a second collector plate electrode 17 serving as a high voltage side electrode, and a first collector plate electrode 19 serving as a low voltage side electrode facing each other. And a dust collecting part 21. A high voltage power supply 25 is connected to the discharge electrode 11 and the counter electrode 13 via an overcurrent breaker (not shown),
For example, a high voltage of 8 [kV] (kilovolt) is applied.

The ionizer section 15 gives an electric charge to dust or particles passing therethrough by corona discharge. In the embodiment of the present invention, a positive electric charge is given. The discharge electrode 11 is formed by arranging a wire made of a material such as tungsten, and the plurality of discharge electrodes 11 are arranged between the counter electrodes 13.

Each counter electrode 13 is formed in a plate shape and is provided so as to face the above-mentioned discharge electrode 11.

The discharge electrode 11 has electrode mounting pieces 15 provided at both ends of a frame 14 (see FIG. 3) for assembling the electrostatic precipitator 3.
The springs 16 are attached so as to be passed in parallel many times while displacing the positions at predetermined intervals, and are stretched with a predetermined tension of the spring 16. A terminal 18 (see FIG. 2) protruding from a through hole formed in the assembling frame body 14 is provided at one end of the discharge electrode 11. The assembling frame 14 and the electrode mounting piece 15 are made of an insulating material such as synthetic resin.

In the discharge electrode 11, cations are generated, and the cations are added to the molecules in the air passing therethrough to be ionized, or dust or the like is ionized. At this time, the discharge electrode 11 ionizes oxygen in the air to generate ozone.

The characteristic feature is that, as can be seen from FIG.
There is no float electrode found in the conventional auto-bias type air cleaner between the ionizer part 15 and the dust collecting part 21, and a voltage setting means 55 is provided between each counter electrode 13 and the ground GND side. That is the point.

As the voltage setting means 55, a Zener diode is used in the illustrated embodiment,
If the voltage applied to the discharge electrode 11 is 8 [kV] as described above, the voltage setting means 55 sets the discharge electrode 11 and the counter electrode 13 so that the voltage of the counter electrode 13 becomes, for example, 5 [kV]. During this period, a voltage difference of 3 [kV] is set, for example.

By appropriately selecting the value of the distance T between the counter electrode 13 and the second collector plate electrode 17 and the set voltage value of the voltage setting means 55, the voltage on the dust collecting portion 21 side is set to, for example, 2 to 2. It can be set to 0.5 [kV].

Moreover, each counter electrode 13 in FIG.
As seen from FIG. 5, it is formed in a substantially sawtooth shape as shown in FIG. 5, and the portion A in FIG. 4 is the protruding electrode portion 13a. A plurality of protruding electrode portions 13a are formed at predetermined intervals, protrude toward the dust collecting portion 21, and are tapered as shown in FIG. By providing the protruding electrode portion 13a on the counter electrode 13, it is possible to easily discharge from the protruding electrode portion 13a to the second collector plate electrode 17 of the dust collecting portion 21 and to easily apply energy.

As described above, by providing the voltage setting means 55 and the protruding electrode portion 13a on the counter electrode 13, discharge from the protruding electrode portion 13a to the second collector plate electrode 17 of the dust collecting portion 21 is facilitated, so The required float electrode can be eliminated.

Next, the second collector plate electrode 17 and the first collector plate electrode 19 of the dust collecting portion 21 are of spiral type or parallel plate type. However, the dust collecting part 21
When the second collector plate electrode 17 and the first collector plate electrode 19 are of the spiral type, for example, the structure disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 43-22931 can be adopted. That is, the first collector plate electrode 19 on the low voltage side (ground side) is grounded, and as shown in FIGS. 7 to 9, for example, a flat plate-shaped electrode portion 19a made of extremely thin aluminum is covered with the insulating material 19b. It is composed of The insulating material 19b may be made of vinyl chloride, polypropylene, or the like, and has a thickness D1 of 100 [μm]. In this case, the thickness D2 of the electrode portion 19a is 50 [μm].

On the other hand, the second collector plate electrode 17 is
A metal material such as an aluminum thin plate which is not covered with an insulating material as shown in FIGS. 10 to 12 is used.

The second collector plate electrode 17 and the first collector plate electrode 19 are wound in a substantially spiral shape as shown in FIG. By winding in this way, the second
Since the collector plate electrode 17 and the first collector plate electrode 19 are electrically insulated by the insulating material 19b, the withstand voltage characteristic between the electrodes is determined by the characteristic of the insulating material, and the electric field strength is higher than that when only air is used for insulation. The dust collection efficiency of the dust collection unit 21 can be increased by increasing the size.

The dust collecting portion 21 absorbs charged dust, particles, and the like by electric attraction (Coulomb attraction) to collect dust and clean the air.

The main filter 101 and the activated carbon filter 103 are arranged on the downstream side of the ionizer section 15.

The main filter 101 in FIG. 3 is permanently charged, and the main filter 101 is the ionizer section 15.
In the air, dust such as dust in the air charged by the corona discharge is adsorbed by the Coulomb attractive force, and the deodorizing activated carbon filter 103 is arranged further downstream to adsorb odorous components such as cigarettes. The activated carbon filter 103 has a function of reducing and decomposing ozone passing therethrough by the reducing action of the activated carbon.

A fan 5 is disposed downstream of the activated carbon filter 103 in FIG.
Thus, the air that has passed through the ionizer unit 15, the electric dust collecting unit 3, and the activated carbon filter 103 is blown out from the air blowing slit 9. The fan 5 is connected to the control device 31 as shown in FIG. 4, and its driving, stopping, and blowing output are controlled based on a drive signal from the control device 31.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the blower output of the fan 5 is configured to be controllable in three stages of strong, medium, and weak, and is driven in these three stages based on a signal from the control device. .

The gas sensor 3 is provided near the air outlet slit 9 of the air cleaner or outside the case 2 (or in the room).
3 is provided to detect the dust concentration in the air. The gas sensor 33 is used in the control device 31.
It is connected to and detects the concentration of dust (dirt in the air). In the embodiment of the present invention, the gas sensor 33 detects dirt in the air in four stages,
The controller 31 controls the fan 5 in response to the output of the gas sensor 33.

Next, the operation of the present embodiment will be described.

In the air purifier 1, the ionizer section 15
A corona discharge is generated between the discharge electrode 11 and the counter electrodes 13, 13 to ionize dust in the air by the cations generated here to be charged.

In this case, the protruding electrode portion 1 of the counter electrode 13
Discharge from 3a to the second collector plate electrode 17 of the dust collecting portion 21, but since the protruding electrode portion 13a is sharpened in a knife edge shape as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6, discharge is easy.
Moreover, since the voltage difference setting unit 55 in FIG. 4 holds a voltage of, for example, 3 [kV], the counter electrode 13 applies a voltage of 8 [kV] from the high-voltage power supply 25 to the discharge electrodes 11 and 3 [kV]. Occurs and 5 [kV] is generated.

By properly setting the voltage value set by the voltage difference setting section 55 and the distance L between the tip of the protruding electrode section 13a of the counter electrode 13 and the second collector plate electrode 17 of the dust collecting section 21, For example, 2 to 2.5 [kV] is generated between the second collector plate electrode 17 and the first collector plate electrode 19 of the dust collecting part 21.

As described above, unlike the prior art, since the float electrode is not required in this embodiment, the air purifier can be made smaller, thinner, lighter, and lower in cost.

Further, since the second collector plate electrode 17 and the first collector plate electrode 19 of the dust collecting portion 21 are of the vortex winding type, the size of the air cleaner can be further reduced.

The ionized dust is collected and removed by the electric dust collector 3 by the electric Coulomb attraction. A flow of ions is generated between the ionizer unit 15 and the electrostatic precipitator 3, thereby generating an ion wind that moves the entire air in the vicinity thereof.

By forcibly passing the ionic wind through the activated carbon filter 103, ozone blown together with the ionic wind is reduced by the activated carbon and decomposed. Therefore, the activated carbon filter 103 can surely reduce the ozone concentration.

Further, the air purifier of the present invention is not limited to household use, but can be applied to, for example, vehicle use.

[0045]

According to the invention of claim 1, since the counter electrode has the protruding electrode portion, the discharge efficiency is improved with respect to the electrode of the dust collecting portion, and the voltage setting means discharges the voltage applied to the counter electrode. Since the voltage is lower than the voltage applied to the electrodes by the predetermined voltage, the float electrode is not required. This makes it possible to reduce the size, thickness, weight and cost of the air purifier.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the voltage applied to the counter electrode can be easily lowered by a predetermined voltage from the voltage applied to the discharge electrode by simply adding a Zener diode, and a complicated structure is provided. It is possible to provide an air purifier that does not require a float electrode without using it.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, since the protruding electrode having a sharp tip is directed to the dust collecting portion, the induced voltage is smoothly supplied to the high voltage side electrode of the dust collecting portion and the float electrode Since the same operation is performed, it is possible to maintain the dust collecting performance and achieve compactness.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a view showing a main internal structure of a domestic air cleaner according to the present invention as viewed from the front.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a main internal structure of the domestic air cleaner shown in FIG. 1 when viewed from the side.

FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view showing an electric dust collector.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a configuration of an air cleaner of the present invention.

5 is a plan view of the counter electrode of the ionizer portion according to the present invention as viewed in the direction of arrow R in FIG.

6 is a cross-sectional view of the counter electrode of FIG. 5 taken along line XX.

FIG. 7 is a top view of a ground side collector plate electrode of the dust collecting portion.

FIG. 8 is a side view of a ground side collector plate electrode of the dust collecting portion.

FIG. 9 is a cross-sectional view of a ground side collector plate electrode of the dust collecting portion.

FIG. 10 is a top view of a high voltage side collector plate electrode of the dust collecting portion.

FIG. 11 is a side view of a high-voltage side collector plate electrode of the dust collecting portion.

FIG. 12 is a cross-sectional view of a high-voltage side collector plate electrode of the dust collecting portion.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of a spiral dust collecting section.

FIG. 14 is a schematic view showing a configuration of a conventional air cleaner.

[Explanation of symbols]

 11 Discharge Electrode 13 Counter Electrode 13a Projection Electrode Section of Counter Electrode 15 Ionizer Section 17 Collector Plate Electrode on High Voltage Side 21 Dust Collection Section 55 Voltage Difference Setting Section (Zener Diode)

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An ionizer part having a discharge electrode and counter electrodes arranged on opposite sides of the discharge electrode so as to face each other, and an ionizer part for charging and ionizing dust in the air to be cleaned, and ions or ionized dust. And a dust collecting portion that attracts the dust by a Coulomb attractive force, and a plurality of protrusions having a sharp tip protruding toward the dust collecting portion side at an end portion of the counter electrode facing the dust collecting portion side. An air cleaner, wherein an electrode portion is formed, and a voltage setting means for applying a voltage lower than a voltage applied to the discharge electrode by a predetermined voltage is connected to the counter electrode. 2. The air purifier according to claim 1, wherein the voltage difference setting means is a Zener diode. 3. The air cleaner according to claim 1, wherein the protruding electrode portion of the counter electrode is formed in a substantially sawtooth shape in the extending direction of the counter electrode. Machine.