BACKGROUND: Owing to the visible plume and secondary aerosol formation, the emissions of sulfuric acidmist fromcoal-fired power plants have attracted increasing attention. To provide more information for the control of sulfuric acid mist emission, investigations were made of the formation and removal characteristics of sulfuric acid mist in a wet flue gas desulfurization system. RESULTS: The results showed that large numbers of sulfuric acid droplets with sizes less than 0.1 mu m were generated via homogenous nucleation. With higher inlet SO3 concentrations, the fine particle concentration after desulfurization was increased. Increases in the liquid-gas ratio and the inlet fly ash concentration and decreases in the inlet flue gas temperature improved the sulfuric acid mist removal efficiency. The wet flue gas desulfurization (WFGD) system with double scrubbers achieved higher sulfuric acidmist removal efficiency than theWFGD system with a single scrubber. CONCLUSION: The sulfuric acid mist droplets created via homogenous nucleationwere mainly in the submicron range, and their removal efficiencies in theWFGD system were influenced by the desulfurization operating parameters. TheWFGD system with double scrubbers achieved higher removal efficiency. (C) 2016 Society of Chemical Industry