A cost effective technology to remove particulates from domestic
chimneys
Morten Bentsen, National Institute of Technology
Project CleanAir (project no 1999-71007). “Enhancing air quality in urban areas by
development of a residential cleaning technology for burning solid fuel for domestic use”.
Objectives: To develop a cost effective residential "end of pipe" solution for cleaning
emission from using solid fuels, contributing to the reduction of the 24 240 deaths annually
as well as the 1.540.000 and 460.000 cases of respiratory disease in adults and children
respectively among 76 million citizens in Europe exposed to poor urban air quality. The
project conforms to EU programme “Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development”
Key Action 4 especially 4.1.2 by “improving quality of urban life … through the reduction of
air pollution and 4.3.1 by contributing to “use of renewable resources”.
Description of the work
The principle innovation is the development of a novel "end of pipe" electrostatic precipitation
and oxidisation device, for household solid fuel burning fires and stoves that exploits a nonthermal plasma produced by electron discharge within the reaction chamber. To achieve this,
the project has developed the following system elements:
1. Plasma-effect reaction chambers to achieve 95 % cleaning
efficiency of particulate matter (PM). Development of effective spear
and conducting chamber electrodes and chamber design to create a
sufficiently powerful ion-fan effect to maintain the chimney draft to
within 2% of the original, unmodified chimney performance. Design of
cleaning unit to fit a typical household chimneystack.
2. Miniaturised and rugged high voltage Switch Mode Power Supply
(SMPS) to create the necessary high voltage for the plasma effect to
take place in the reaction chambers by creating a miniaturised, high voltage – low energy
power supply (maximum 100 W) using a novel SMPS technology.
Results
Measurements of particle emission during use of
cleaning unit do demonstrate high cleaning efficiency.
Particle separation efficiencies calculated from the
measured number of particles were between 84 and
99 % for particles of size 0.04 µm to 6.3 µm.
95
90
85
Particle s (mg/MJ)
CleanAir
Pellets
Pellets
100
80
60
40
20
0
Modern
10
Old
1
Modern
0.1
Old
The table
demonstrates the
Particle size (µm )
emission of
particles from use
of CleanAir unit compared to uncleaned emission from
old fireplaces and alternative technology including
modern fireplaces such as clean burning ovens and
pellets ovens. The lowest particle emission of 4 mg/MJ
fuels was measured during use of the CleanAir unit.
This particle concentration is corrected for dilution with
air, which takes place in the cleaning unit. The air
dilution ratio was is about four and hence, the
80
0.01
Old
Separation efficiency (%)
100
concentration of particles from the chimney would be four times lower if the air dilution would
be included.
Project manager: Applied Plasma Physics AS, P.O Box 584/Bedriftsveien 25, N-4035
Sandnes, Norway
Industrial Partners include: SEREPS (France), VUKOV Extra AS (Slovakia), CSO Technik
Ltd (UK), ShroederPlast AS (Denmark) and B+K Keramik u. Tonwaren GmbH (Germany).
Primary research and development institution: Teknologisk Institutt (National Institute of
Technology), P.O. box 2608/Akersveien 24c, St. Hanshaugen, N-0131 Oslo, Norway.
Contributing research and development institution: Pera Technology, Pera Innovation
Park, Melton Mowbray, LE13OPB, Leicestershire, United Kingdom,
The project is financed in the EU Frame Programme 5 under the Co-operative Research
Actions for Technology (CRAFT), project no 1999-71007 and has a total budget of 1.25
Million Euros, of which the EU contribution is 625.000 Euro.