A prototype dust conditioning system for control of coal dust was designed, constructed, and evaluated based on the concept of condensation enlargement. The volume of the device was 0.74 cubic feet and it was designed to handle up to 50 cubic feet per minute (cfm) of dust laden air. The performance of the device was evaluated for both naturally occurring aerosols and laboratory generated coal dust. Both these samples nucleated and grew readily in the conditioner with output droplet sizes ranging up to 10 microns and a large fraction of these falling out inside the conditioner. Nucleation efficiencies of 95 percent were measured, resulting in overall mass removal efficiencies greater than 99 percent at flow rates of 10cfm. At 50cfm, the efficiency dropped to 80 percent. The conditioner consumed 10 gallons of water per hour. Various engineering problems encountered included heat transfer, plate wetting and temperature stability. The device was able to be scaled to a capacity of 3000cfm, sufficient for a full scale mining application. The authors suggest that a geometric configuration of a concentric cylindrical shape with the outer cylinder being cooled and heat introduced along the inner cylinder should be examined as this would have some advantages over the present plane geometry used in the prototype.
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.