Improving the scavenging kernel of aerosol particles by small water drops

Scavenging aerosol particles by means of water sprays is an efficient way of removing hazardous dust from the atmosphere. Starting from the work of Wang et al. (1978), we propose to extend its formulation of a theoretical scavenging kernel to particles presenting a non-negligible inertia. Indeed, this kernel shows its limit for aerosol of diameter greater than about 1 µm and Reynolds number over 100. We propose an improvement of the scavenging kernel via a correlation of its mean ventilation coefficient that extends its prediction capabilities compared to previously existing scavenging kernels (Wang et al. (1978), Mohebbi et al. (2003)) for a range of water drops of diameter between 84 µm and 620 µm, a Reynolds number lower than 100, particles ranging from 1 nm to 20 µm diameter and humidities between 50% and 100%.