Although separators are designed in a variety of ways, their purpose is to remove water suspended in the steam, which cannot be discharged through the drain valve. Three types of separators are commonly used in steam systems.

 Baffle type - a baffle folded plate separator consists of many baffles. The flow direction of the fluid changes many times in the separator. Due to the large mass inertia of the suspended water drop, when the flow direction of the baffle changes, the dry steam will bypass the baffle continue to move forward, the water drop will accumulate on the baffle. The steam water separator has a large flow area, which reduces the kinetic energy of water droplets. Most of the water droplets will condense finally fall to the bottom of the separator, which is discharged through the drain valve.

 Type a cyclones centrifuges use a series of fins to produce high-speed cyclones, which make the steam flowing in the cyclones rotate at high speed.

 There are obstacles in the steam passage inside the adsorption adsorption type separator (usually metal mesh pad). When water drops are encountered, the suspended water drops will be adsorbed. When the water drops are large enough, they fall to the bottom of the separator due to gravity. It is also common to use the combination of cyclone separator adsorption separator, because the combination of the two methods will improve the separation efficiency.

 The main difference between baffle separator, cyclone separator adsorption separator is that baffle separator can maintain high separation efficiency in a large flow range, while the separation efficiency of cyclone separator adsorption separator is only 98%. The speed is lower than 13m / s, otherwise the efficiency will be very low. When the steam velocity is 25m / s, the separation efficiency is only about 50%.