Design, construction and testing of a flue gas filter system for small scale incinerators

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Date
SEPTEMBER, 2016
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Abstract
Increased public awareness posed by global warming has led to greater concern over the impact of anthropogenic emissions from incinerators. This lead to the development of alternative air pollution control systems such as wet scrubber systems, gravity separators, centrifugal collectors, fabric filters and electrostatic precipitators (ESP). This thesis is aimed at designing, construction and testing of a relatively simple, efficient and practical unit suitable for incinerator exhaust gas cleaning. A low energy orifice wet scrubber was constructed and tested with an existing small scale domestic waste incinerator. The inlet and outlet temperatures of the scrubber were recorded with pyrometers and the chimney outlet measured with infra-red thermometer. Smoke samples were passed through filter papers separately at the scrubber inlet and outlet to capture the smoke particles. The particles were observed under microscope at the KNUST Physics laboratory and the results analyzed. The smoke emissions from the incinerator exhaust during the testing of the incinerator were compared to the Ringelmann smoke chart and the smoke density before and after the filter installation determined. The scrubber was able to reduce the smoke density from 21.34 % to 17 %. The test result on particle distribution showed that the scrubber could not collect particle matter (PM) less than 5 μm and particle collection efficiency for PM greater than 30 μm was more than 80 percent. Mean particle size diameter at scrubber inlet and outlet were 73.4 μm and 23.8 μm respectively.
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A thesis submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering.
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