Controlling Fugitive Dust With an Electrostatically Charged Dry Fog Suppression System

Water spray technology has established itself as an alternative to bag-houses in controlling airborne fugitive dust. Since its inception though, there has been further advancements in technology that takes wet spray suppression a couple of steps further. This new advanced technology involves a system that produces extremely fine water droplets, and is enhanced by the addition of an electrostatic charging device, to suppress fugitive dusts without wetting equipment or adding moisture to the product. Because this electrostatically enhanced Dry Fog" controls fugitive dusts on a dry basis, it is compared to and considered an alternative to baghouses. A number of field tests, both measured and visual, have been conducted on electrostatically charged dry fog devices. The dry fog devices - Sonicore¯ Foggers - operate on the principle that most fugitive dusts carry an electrical charge. By exposing the dust particles to an oppositely charged dry fog, particle-to-droplet contact is enhanced, resulting in rapid agglomeration and in-situ dust dropout. The electrostatic enhancement is particularly beneficial on hard to control dusts and those dust particles less than 10 microns in size. This paper presents the current detailed description of the Sonicore¯ Foggers, a summary of test results, and visuals on some typical applications.