Numerical Study of Black Carbon Particles and their Removal from Ship Exhaust Gas with a Wet Electrostatic Precipitator

Currently the maritime sector is in a phase where strict environmental legislations are entering into force and new legislations are on the way. Legislations on particle matter (PM)/black carbon (BC) in the exhaust gas are one of the big topics at the international Maritime organization right now and legislations are expected in the future.

Wet electrostatic precipitators (WESP) are one of the processes used for PM/BC removal on land based plants and will be the process focused on in this project. In a WESP particles are charged and forced to the sides where they are collected by a water film. A model of a full scale WESP will be developed with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), where the charging mechanisms, water film, and thermodynamics of the WESP will be incorporated.

The main objective of the project is to reduce size of the WESP while still maintain a relatively high particle trapping efficiency. This will be done by capturing the performance of the WESP with the CFD model, and validating it by lab scale experimental setups as well as a unique, large-scale 2 MW marine engine testbed.

The project will be carried out in corporation with Alfa Laval Aalborg A/S, where test facilities are available. These will be used to test various conditions on WESP’s, where the data will be used to validate the model.

Collaborator: Alfa Laval Aalborg A/S.
Funding: Alfa Laval Aalborg A/S and Innovation Fund Denmark.