A comprehensive study combing experiment and CFD simulation on the fume hood performance for nanoparticles and isopropanol control

Abstract

This study aimed to comprehensively investigate the control effectiveness of three types of fume hoods on the nanomaterial particles (NPs) and isopropanol (IPA) gas and evaluate the impact of various operational parameters on the emission. The three types of fume hoods studied were constant air volume (CAV), variable air volume (VAV), and air curtain (AC) fume hoods. A key novelty of this study was the development of a measurement method for the tracer gas experiment to assess fume hood performance. Experimental results indicated that under conditions of fully open sashes, a face velocity of 0.2 m/s, and outward release of the contaminant source, significant emissions of NPs and IPA were observed in CAV and VAV fume hoods. The leakage percentage (LEP) was measured at 4.16% and 8.24% in CAV, and 3.37% and 3.23% in VAV, for NPs and IPA, respectively. Additionally, simulation results for CAV fume hoods regarding IPA and NPs emissions closely matched experimental data, with errors of 4.8% and 16.8%, respectively, demonstrating the validity of the present model. The emission values obtained from dynamic CAV simulations were also consistent with experimental values, with an error of 7.98%. The CAV tracer experiment showed a similar LEp for IPA, NPs, and SF6, suggesting that IPA is applicable to replace SF6 or NPs for the fume hood tracer gas experiment in the consideration of reducing carbon emissions. The experimental methods and numerical models developed in this study could be applied to the design of energy-efficient fume hoods and the evaluation of their efficiency in controlling air pollutants.