A dust concentrator coupled with a dust collector can be used to improve the overall dust collection efficiency in a dust removal process. A new dust concentrator is studied in terms of its efficiency and pressure drop. The objective of the work is to investigate the effects of four independent variables including air flow rate, solid mass fraction, split ratio of the concentrated stream and particle diameter on the separation performance. The results show that the efficiency and pressure drop were mainly affected by particle size and air flow rate. Moreover, the split ratio of concentrated stream has a deep effect on efficiency. For an increase in split ratio from 20 to 60% the efficiency increases from 58 to 83.1% in separation of 11 mu m particles, with 130 m(3)/h of air flow rate. The split ratio can serve as an adjusting parameter for obtaining a required efficiency during the design of the equipment. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers.