The path has opened for leading the way in measuring fine dust in harsh environments that have been highly dependent on overseas countries with domestic independent technology. A preprocessing technology that can monitor fine dust (PM10) and ultrafine dust (PM2.5) emitted from thermal power plants and incinerators in real time has been developed for the first time in Korea. It is expected to be widely used in observing fine dust emitted from existing businesses as well as newly constructed businesses in the future.

The research team of Director Han Bang-woo of the Urban Environment Research Lab at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (President Ryu Seok-hyun, hereinafter referred to as KIMM) under the Ministry of Science and ICT has developed a technology for the first time in Korea to convert the high temperature and high concentration internal environment of a chimney to the level of the room temperature and low concentration atmospheric environment and measure fine dust (PM10) and ultrafine dust (PM2.5) in real time by classifying them by size.

The research team utilized four core technologies developed independently: △Variable velocity and pressure response constant velocity suction technology △Quantitative suction dilution technology △Droplet separation technology △Wall loss reduction technology, enabling management of fine dust (PM10) and ultrafine dust (PM2.5) emitted from chimneys by fine dust size rather than total suspended particulate matter (TSP).

This real-time fine dust monitoring technology has been verified for its performance through long-term verification at domestic thermal power plants and incinerators over the past six months.

Previously, it was difficult to obtain accurate real-time fine dust measurement data due to the harsh environmental conditions inside the chimney, such as high temperature and high concentration.

The current measurement method, light transmission measurement, indirectly measures the amount of light reduced by passing light through all the dust generated in the chimney, making it difficult to accurately monitor fine dust.

In addition, the existing weight measurement method measured the weight inside the filter after inhaling fine dust for a certain period of time, so it took a long time to obtain concentration data, and there were limitations in real-time management.

The research team developed a constant velocity suction technology that slows down the speed of exhaust gas entering the measuring device, reducing measurement errors caused by changes in chimney velocity. This is why accurate measurement of fine dust is possible.

The research team also automatically controlled the amount of air injected to extract a certain amount of exhaust gas despite various environmental changes such as pressure and temperature inside the chimney, and suppressed the creation of water droplets in the form of condensation as much as possible by maintaining a constant high temperature. They also minimized the adhesion of fine dust to the wall by injecting air into a tube with many holes.

Han Bang-woo, head of the Urban Environment Research Lab at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, said, “This is the first technology that can obtain real-time information on the exact concentration and size distribution of fine dust emitted from chimneys at industrial sites,” and added, “We will work to establish a management system for emission sources based on the measured fine dust emission information.”

This study was conducted with the support of the Ministry of Environment's 'Verification of continuous measurement technology for fine dust from fixed pollution source emission facilities using multi-stage dilution sampling technology' project.

This technology was selected as one of the '20 Best Environmental R&D Achievements in 2023' by the Ministry of Environment.