The Effect of Scale-Up on the Performance of High Energy Scrubbers

An experimental investigation has been carried out to examine the effect of scale-up on the performance of scrubbers for a wide range of operating conditions. A pilot plant with a maximum air flow rate of 400 cfm and a water flow rate of 4 gpm was used for this study. For the same operating conditions, the performance of 1.5 in. orifice type scrubber was found better than that of 1.0 in. size. The results were categorized according to the size of the particles, classed as large (1.5 to 3.5μ diam), medium (0.6 to 1.5μ diam) and small (less than O.6μ diam). Although the magnitude of improvement of the collection efficiency was dependent on the operating conditions, differences to the extent of 20% were obtained. The improvement of the collection efficiency for the larger scrubber was found to be due to the influence of the main stream turbulence.