Electrostatic Precipitator Essay -- Preventing Air Pollution

The electrostatic precipitator (ESP) is a machine used in factories, to clean out the waste solid particle, for example ash from the exhaust gas, allowing clean exhaust gas exit through the chimney. The electrostatic precipitator functions by using first allow the exhaust gas with the waste solid particles pass through the Nozzle as shown in the diagram below. Then the exhaust gas passes through inlet gas distribution, which evenly distributes the gas as shown below in a turquoise color, and starts going through the Discharge electrodes and the collector plates, which is shown in the diagram red and blue respectively. The discharge electrodes, which are powered by high voltage direct current, ionize the gas along with the other solid waste particles negatively. The collector plates are also charged with high voltage electricity, but it is positively charged, therefore attracting the negatively charged solid particle, because oppositely charged particles attract. This allows the clean exhaust gas pass through the other end, while the solid waste particles are trapped in the collector plates. Eventually when there are enough solid waste particles collected on the collector plates, the collect plates shakes off the collected waste, where it drops to the bottom of the shaft as shown in the diagram as â€Å"Hopper†. http://www.babcock.com/products/Documents/dryESP_illustration.jpg Many cities are currently affected by air pollution and Hong Kong is one example. Hong Kong’s air pollution level often exceeds the recommended air pollution level put out by the World Health Organization, and Hong Kong’s pollution index was at â€Å"very high† meaning that it exceeded 101, for 34% of the time (Hunt, 2011). Another example, when Hong Kong excee... ... tag, and lots of regulation in certain countries requiring factories to use one, it puts a lots of stress and increases cost on the factory operators, and might cause jobs to be cut in order to buy and operate the ESP. This might affect economic growth, but on the other hand the ESP will result in cleaner air, and this has increased the housing market price due to cleaner air (Rich 2011), which will help a sluggish economy, for example in the U.S. Overall, I believe that the ESP has a mostly positive impact on society in general. ESPs impacted positively on the environment, and health, but have both advantages and disadvantages economically. However I believe that co-operations and factories have a responsibility to deal with their pollution, because they created it in the first place, even though it might take a certain amount of money and investment.