Emission characteristics and control device effectiveness of particulate matters and particulate-phase pahs from urban charbroiling restaurants: A field test

Abstract

Urban restaurants that charbroil meat are a major emission source of fine particulate matter (PM) and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and receive frequent public complaints in large Korean cities. This study evaluated the effectiveness of newly installed pollution control equipment, including electrostatic precipitators (ESPs) and filters, at five charbroiling restaurants in different metropolitan areas near Seoul. The PM in the exhaust gas, which was sampled from the inflow and the outflow of the control devices, was measured with a 3-stage cascade impactor. The particle-bound PAHs, following pretreatment, extraction, and concentration, were then quantitatively analyzed using high-resolution gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). According to our field tests, the flue gas emitted by these five restaurants contained average PM10, PM2.5, and PAH concentrations of 22.6 mg m–3, 22.1 mg m–3, and 4,127.1 ng m–3, respectively. In addition, the ratio of the PM2.5 to the PM10 was 0.98, and the correlation coefficient between the PM10 and the particulate-phase PAHs was 0.95, suggesting a close relationship between the fine particle fraction and PAHs. The air pollution control equipment demonstrated an overall removal efficiency above 90%, but specific cases exhibited an unexpectedly low efficiency (30%), indicating the necessity of periodic cleaning and consistent maintenance.