Capability
Eliminators
A mist eliminator strips entrained droplets from an airstream — the stage that stops scrubbing liquor or process mist being carried out of the stack. Beckox fabricates eliminator vessels and sections for new systems and as replacements in existing plant.
Where eliminators earn their keep
Any wet air-cleaning process leaves the airstream carrying fine droplets. Without an eliminator stage those droplets — still carrying the chemistry the scrubber just removed — are thrown from the fan or rain from the stack. An eliminator forces the airstream through a tortuous path; droplets cannot follow the turns, strike the surfaces and drain back to the sump.
We fabricate eliminator stages integral to our own scrubbers, free-standing eliminator vessels for duties such as chrome mist, and replacement pads and sections to bring existing plant back to performance.
Signs an eliminator needs attention
Staining or dripping around the stack outlet, liquor pooling near the fan, rising pressure drop across the system and falling extraction at the hoods all point the same way: the eliminator is blocked, damaged or was never adequate for the duty. Because the eliminator sits in the wettest, most chemically loaded part of the system it is usually the first component to need replacement — and a fabricated replacement section is a small job compared with the corrosion damage a failed one causes downstream.
- In-line and vessel-type droplet separators
- Eliminator stages integral to packed-tower scrubbers
- Replacement sections for existing plant, whoever built it
- Drain-back and washdown connections
- Inspection access designed in, so the next check is easy
How mist eliminators work
Three mechanisms do the work, and all of them depend on making droplets leave the streamline the air is following. Inertial impaction catches the larger droplets: air turns around a fibre or vane, the droplet is too heavy to turn with it and strikes the surface. Interception catches mid-size droplets that brush a surface as they pass. Coalescence then does the rest — collected droplets merge into films and run down to drain, which is why an eliminator must be able to shed liquid as fast as it collects it.
That drainage requirement is why eliminators are sized to a velocity range rather than simply made as dense as possible. Too slow and droplets are never thrown out of the airstream; too fast and collected liquid is re-entrained off the downstream face — the same carry-over the eliminator was fitted to stop.
Replacement pads and retrofits
Most enquiries here are replacements rather than new installations: a pad that has fouled, collapsed or been chemically attacked, in a vessel someone else built. We fabricate replacement sections and support grids to fit the existing vessel, measured from it. Where a system never had an eliminator stage and is now raining liquor from the stack, one can usually be retrofitted into the existing tower or added as a separate vessel — see scrubber servicing and refurbishment.
PAGE REVIEWED — 30 July 2026
