Application of Acoustic Agglomeration to Reduce Fine Particle Emissions from Coal Combustion Plants

Removal of fine particles (smaller than 2.5 μm) from industrial flue gases is, at present, one of the most important problems in air pollution abatement. These particles, which are hazardous because of their ability to penetrate deeply into the lungs, are difficult to remove by conventional separation technology. Sonic energy offers a means to solve this problem. The application of a high-intensity acoustic field to an aerosol induces agglomeration processes which changes the size distribution in favor of larger particles, which are then easier to precipitate with a conventional separator. In this work, we present a semiindustrial pilot plant in which this process is applied for reduction of particle emissions in coal combustion fumes. This installation basically consists of an acoustic agglomeration chamber with a rectangular cross-section, driven by four high-power and highly directional acoustic transducers of 10 and/or 20 kHz, and an electrostatic precipitator (ESP). In the experiments, a fluidized bed coal combustor was used as fume generator, and a sophisticated air sampling station was set up to carry out measurements with fume flow rates up to about 2000 m3/h, gas temperatures of about 150 °C, and mass concentrations in the range 1−5 g/m3. The fine particle reduction produced by the acoustic filter was about 40% of the number concentration.