the.com/scrubber
The unsung machine that swallows smokestack poison so the sky doesn't have to.
means A device that removes pollutants, dust, or noxious gases from an exhaust stream, typically by passing the dirty flow through liquid or a reactive medium.
from From 'scrub,' the verb for cleaning by hard rubbing, plus the agent suffix '-er' that turns a doer into a thing-that-does. 'Scrub' itself is medieval, likely from a Middle Dutch or Low German word like 'schrubben,' related to the same family as 'shrub' (the rough, scraggly bush) — the shared thread being something coarse and bristly, the kind of thing you'd scour with. The industrial 'scrubber' is a much younger sense, applying that ancient image of brute cleaning to the modern problem of washing the filth out of smoke.
- acid eater
- Strips sulfur dioxide before it becomes acid rain
- limestone diet
- Many use crushed limestone slurry to trap pollutants
- byproduct hustle
- Captured sulfur often resold as wallboard gypsum
- naval roots
- Submarines scrub CO2 to keep crews breathing
flue gas desulfurization — removes so2 from coal power plant exhaust; ~90% of us coal plants use them
wet scrubber venturi — used in steel mills and refineries to capture particulates; clairton coke works pittsburgh
limestone forced oxidation — scrubber type at gavin power station ohio treating emissions from 1,300 mw capacity