Bubble columns are being widely used in chemical process industries for its various advantages and simplicity. A pilot plant novel multi-stage bubble column wet scrubber has been conceived, designed and fabricated. This novel scrubber has been used as dust collecting wet scrubber in presence of other gaseous and vapor pollutants. This paper reports on the detailed experimental investigations carried out on the scrubbing of fly-ash in this novel wet scrubber using water as the scrubbing medium. It has been found that the present system yielded very high efficiency for the scrubbing of fly-ash. In most cases, the fly-ash removal efficiency is more than 95% and many cases approaches 99.5%. A correlation has been developed for prediction of particulate (fly-ash) removal efficiency. The scale-up of this pilot plant in Indian thermal power plant shows excellent performance and meets the stringent Pollution control standards. Attempt has also been made to install the above wet scrubber in Indian Thermal Power Plants and Ceramic Industries to combat particulate pollution control and found excellent performance. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.