A3.10.1.1 Wet Scrubber
Wet scrubbers trap suspended particles by direct contact with a spray of water or other liquid. In effect, a scrubber washes the particulates out of the dirty airstream as they collide with and are entrained by the countless tiny droplets in the spray.
Several configurations of wet scrubbers are in use. In a spray-tower scrubber, an upward-flowing airstream is washed by water sprayed downward from a series of nozzles. The water is re-circulated after it is sufficiently cleaned to prevent clogging of the nozzles.
In orifice scrubbers and wet-impingement scrubbers, the air and droplet mixture collides with a solid surface. Collision with a surface atomizes the droplets, reducing droplet size and thereby increasing total surface contact area. These devices have the advantage of lower water-recirculation rates.
Venturi scrubbers are the most efficient of the wet collectors. They achieve high relative velocities by injecting water into the throat of a venturi channel–a constriction in the flow path–through which particulate-laden air is passing at high speed.
Source: Green Force Engineers