A new concept of electric arc furnaces (EAFs) dust removal by heterogeneous condensation with waste heat recovery system is proposed. The results suggest that the higher CO2 content in EAFs flue gas is helpful for supersaturated environment establishment and EAFs fine particles can be successfully enlarged. Three factors that affected the performance of the EAFs particle growth by heterogeneous condensation are identified: supersaturation, particle concentration and residence time. Especially, larger particle concentration aggravates the adverse effect of shortening residence time on the growth of fine particles. In order to enhance the enlargement performance of fine particles, surfactant was added into the water, the results suggest that the small particle (<1 mu m) enlargement is highly improved when the addition concentration is bigger than 10 g/L. The results of this work demonstrate that heterogeneous condensation with waste heat recovery system could be a potential technology for EAFs fine particles removal. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.