Electrostatic abatement of airborne respirable dust emission from mechanized tree-nut harvesting: Theoretical basis

The mechanized harvesting of tree nuts relies upon mechanically collecting and aerodynamically separating the nuts from extraneous vegetative and soil matter within the orchard using mobile power equipment. Typically the associated high-volume, high-velocity exhaust air disperses into the ambient atmosphere excessive concentrations of respirable-size particulate matter in the PM10 and PM2.5 micrometer realm creating a significant community air-quality problem. Our work developed a cyclonic-separation process for removing the PM10 dust and several candidate electrostatic-abatement processes for the smaller PM2.5 dust. We present the theoretical basis, including relevant mass- and charge-balances, for electrostatically abating the PM2.5 airborne dust via: (a) Ionized-field charging of the dust plume and its space-charge deposition within adjacent grounded tree-leaf canopies as air velocity subsides; (b) Injection of induction-charged spray of like polarity into the ion-charged-dust plume for space-charge-field enhancement; (c) Injection of charged spray alone into the dust plume; and (d) Injection of (+) polarity charged spray into the (−) polarity ionized-field-charged plume for electrostatic wet scrubbing of the dust. In addition to the theoretical basis, we report the technical development of a full-scale prototype to implement these electrostatic-abatement approaches on a mechanical harvester having ∼10 g/s PM2.5 dust emission at ∼27 m/s in an ∼7 m3/s exhaust plume.