Prevention efficiencies of woven straw to reduce PM10 emissions from exposed area

Woven straw has been demonstrated to be a cheap and effective method to prevent fugitive particular matter (PM), which is a typical air pollution source emitted from the exposed area, like farmland or a construction site. From the engineering application point of view, an approach using dimensionless analysis with a multivariable regression method based on experimental data would be worth exploring to predict the prevention efficiencies of woven straw to reduce the fugitive PM10 (PM sized less than 10 μm). A series of field-analogous experiments were carried out to continuously measure PM10 using Β -attenuation particle monitors in an artificial wind tunnel system. It was found that the prevention efficiencies of woven straw to reduce PM10 is significantly dependent on the coverage ratio of woven straw, and the maximum prevention efficiency of PM10 is about 42%. It is emphasized that the prevention efficiency approaches zero as the coverage ratio is less than about 40%. This implies that PM10 reduction was inefficient if the exposed area was not covered enough with woven straw. Another point of interest is that total elimination of PM10 emission is not possible using full coverage woven straw. The effects of wind velocity, silt content, and moisture on prevention efficiency are also discussed in this paper. Correlated with major parameters, a useful equation is proposed to estimate the prevention efficiencies that would be valid under the appropriate conditions suggested by this work.