Iran Occupational Health

Background and aims: The emission of sulfur dioxide in air has hazardous effects on human health and environment. In this research the use of surfactants with sodium bicarbonate and limestone for the removal of sulfur dioxide was studied.

Methods: A packed scrubber was used and the effect of absorbents (limestone or sodium bicarbonate), the kind and concentration of surfactants were assessed. Concentration of sulfur dioxide was measured at inlet and outlet of scrubber by real-time devices.

Results: The results showed that removal efficiency of sulfur dioxide was enhanced when the concentration of cation surfactants with limestone or sodium bicarbonate increased but when the concentration of anion surfactants with absorbents increased it caused the decrease of removal efficiency of sulfur dioxide. The highest average of removal efficiency (94.54%) was reported when 2% of limestone with 0.01 mole of cation surfactant was used and concentration of sulfur dioxide was 55 ppm. The efficiency was also high whenever sodium bicarbonate was used instead of limestone.

Conclusion: The results of this research show that using bicarbonate sodium or limestone with cation surfactants is more efficient than using these absorbents alone for removing sulfur dioxide from air pollutants and this removal process can be applied for controlling sulfur dioxide at industrial process.