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Vorsana Scrubber: Capturing Particulates, Mercury and CO2

Sponsor: Vorsana Inc.

Tao Xing, PhD, PE, Assistant Prof. Dept. of Mech. Engineering, University of Idaho

Industrial Partner: Vorsana, Inc. (David McCutchen CEO)

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Introduction• The volatile organic

compounds (VOCs) in flue gas include carcinogens, soot is harmful, and others such as mercury, sulfur dioxide and CO2 are a concern:• Health hazard for workers• Financial risk for owners• Expensive inadequate controls• Increase environmental risk

Wedding pose in Beijing

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Urgent Needs!• Current scrubbers are unreliable/ineffective for capturing

VOCs, CO2 and fine particulates

– This was confirmed by manufacturers and users• Emissions are already the cause of significant cost and

fines • Current technology has high cost and energy and/or water

usage.• Gas Scrubbers are a $6.5B market worldwide in 2013

(McIlvane Co.)• A better way to separate the components of flue

gas needs to be found that can capture fine particulates and polluting gases such as CO2 and SOx.

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Project Goals and Approach• Goal: demonstrate that mechanical separation of the

components of a gas is possible, and can be applied to an industrial scale.

• Approach: the interesting fact is that all pollutants are heavier than fresh air, so a mechanism for separate that emphasizes this difference could pull the pollutants out mechanically, with less energy use and cost.• Computational/theoretical analysis using computers and

experimental measurements (testing will be done at the steam plant on campus)

• Faculty: Dr. Tao Xing from ME• ME Shop Technician• One senior design team with 2 ME and 2 BE students.• Budget: $70,000 (total cost for a senior design team plus a

research project starting Jan. 2016).

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The Innovative Scrubber (Vorsana Inc.)• Typical scrubbers are special-purpose. Wet scrubbers have chemical sprays, dry

scrubbers have adsorber catalysts or cartridges.– Large scrubber installations are part of many industrial plants

• The Vorsana Scrubber could be smaller and more broadly effective– Lower cost of installation, broader effectiveness against VOCs, other chemical

emissions, and even CO2 capture

• The proposed design is inexpensive and durable– Computer simulations

will be used to confirm the expected effectiveness

• The test machine will be made to handle the industrial scale of the test facility.

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Tasks• Deeper understanding of properties for various

components in flue gas• Design effective ways to measure concentrations of

the various components• Measurements of the performance of a prototype

machine shipped by Vorsana Inc.• Propose new designs• Test new designs on a model scale and/or prototype machine if applicable

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Milestones Achieved• Previous Direct Numerical Simulations have

confirmed the existence of radial counterflow vortex network between two counter-rotating disks (Xing, T., Journal of Hydrodynamics, 2014)

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Questions?