Abstract
Ultrafine particles (UFPs) less than 100 nm in size has become an issue of concern about health risk to human bodies. In general, air filters which are applied to air cleaners to collect particles suspended in indoor air has a drawback that the pressure drop gradually rises owing to the accumulation of particles onto them. Therefore, the technologies that UFPs are collected at a high efficiency without the rise in pressure drop with the duration of use are required. In the present study, we aimed to develop an UFP collection device by contacting neutral UFPs with mists generated by ultrasonic atomization to collect them onto electrodes since these generated mists with a size of micrometer-order are highly charged. Thus, we devised, and then modified the ultrasonic-atomization electrostatic UFP collector (UAEUC), and evaluated its UFP collection performance. As a result, it was found that the adoption of centrifugal force to the device can enhance UFP collection.
