Eliminating Factory Fine Dust with Microbubbles

[Asia Economy Reporter Junho Hwang] The Korea Institute of Industrial Technology and Korea ENG, a small and medium-sized enterprise, announced on the 20th that they have jointly developed a 'Microbubble System' that can remove fine dust-causing substances by converting automobile exhaust gases into bubbles underwater.

The research team developed 'Microbubble' equipment capable of dissolving exhaust gases in water and creating bubbles smaller than carbonic acid bubbles, at the micrometer (㎛, one-thousandth of a millimeter) scale. This process involves adding oxidizers to the bubbles, dissolving and capturing pollutants in water, followed by wastewater treatment.

The team reduced the required pressure to one-twentieth of the previous level by designing the blower at the microbubble equipment’s outlet to re-suck the gas back. Existing microbubble technology required pushing high-temperature, high-pressure gases into water under strong pressure, which caused difficulties such as compressor damage.

Using the equipment developed by the research team, passing 1000 liters of exhaust gas per minute through water successfully reduced fine dust (PM10) by 99.9%, sulfur oxides by 99%, and nitrogen oxides by 91.9%. A prototype of the equipment was installed in April at the paper company 'Moorim P&P' in Ulsan.

Dr. Hyungtae Cho of the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology said, "This achievement was made possible by providing technical support so that the microbubble core technology owned by Korea ENG could be utilized by the institute to reduce fine dust," adding, "We also plan to conduct additional research to reduce volatile organic compounds that cause factory odors in the future."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.