Abstract
The Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatarexperiences some of the world’s worst air pollution during the winter months, most of it being caused by small coal- and wood-fired stoves which are used for heating and cooking purposes in peri-urban parts of the city. A recent pilot study in Songinokhairkhan District of Ulaanbaatar City evaluated the feasibility of electrostatic dust precipitators (ESP) for reducing particulate matter (PM) emissions from small stoves. This paper focuses on the pollution reduction potentials that would result from a large-scale implementation of ESPs. Using a locally developed low- cost ESP system (which is currently in the process of further improvement), reduction rates ranging between 10 to 50% of the PM emissions (depending on the fuel and combustion conditions) could be achieved. Fitting all or at least a major fraction of the small stoves with such ESPs could reduce PM emissions by an order of several thousand tons per heating season for the whole city. The avoided particle emissions would simultaneously prevent atmospheric pollution by various trace metals and metalloids including As, Cd, Pb and Zn, which are known to be major soil and water pollutants locally, and several other toxic substances. However, this also means that safe disposal strategies must be developed for the fly ash precipitated during ESP operation.
Highlights
In many parts of the world, small-scale combustion systems pose particular challenges for air pollution control: despite their limited size, high unit numbers may result in significant emissions into the atmosphere
The high particle emissions caused by the combustion of raw, subbituminous coal used in our experiments, the constant decline of in the system’s efficiency over time, and the very large amounts of particulate matter (PM) collected all indicate that the accumulation of PM on the electrode had an insulating effect which led to decreasing removal rates over time
One priority among the urgently needed counteractions should be the reduction of emissions from the city’s roughly 200,000 small stoves, which are used to heat dwellings in the city’s peri-urban ger areas, thereby causing about 30% to 40% of the total PM emissions in the city
Summary
In many parts of the world, small-scale combustion systems pose particular challenges for air pollution control: despite their limited size, high unit numbers may result in significant emissions into the atmosphere. Small-scale stoves, heaters or furnaces fired by solid fuels such as coal or biomass are important sources of pollutants ranging from particulate matter to various gaseous compounds (Özdogan 1997; Kim Oanh et al 2005; Jerret 2015; Lelieveld et al 2015; Hrdlička et al 2016). It is estimated that more than half of Ulaanbaatar’s population lives in ger areas (Tsutsumida et al 2015; Krüger et al 2019). Estimates on the number of ger households in Ulaanbaatar ranged between 81,600
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