Fast Evolution of Sulfuric Acid Aerosol Activated by External Fields for Enhanced Emission Control

Sulfuric acid aerosol (SAA) can considerably deteriorate air visibility, which poses a threat to human health. Pretreatment methods that enlarge SAA sizes are crucial to enhanced emission control from industrials. This study provides an insight into SAA growth in terms of aerosol dynamics simulation and growth experiments under simulated flue gas conditions. Results show that SAA growth dynamics are dominated by coagulation and condensation mechanisms for small and large aerosols, respectively. The two mechanisms are coupled mainly in SAA sizes smaller than 0.05 μm. A large amount of time was allotted for the SAA distribution to grow into an approximately log-normal form without the use of any activation methods. Cooling gas and corona discharge can both enhance SAA growth. Cooling gas is in charge of condensation, whereas corona discharge mainly acts on coagulation. They exhibited 14.3% and 12.3% increases in mean diameter and 12.3% and 69.1% decreases in number concentration. In contrast, adding vapor led to a 1.58% decrease in mean diameter and a 9.4% increase in number concentration. Findings suggest that combining cooling gas and corona discharge to simultaneously promote coagulation and condensation and reduce SAA emission from humid flue gas is possible.