From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishparticulatespar‧tic‧u‧lates /pəˈtɪkjələts, -leɪts $ pər-/ noun [plural] SGPharmful dust in the air, especially produced by car engines
Examples from the Corpus
particulates• The air in El Paso is arguably the dirtiest in Texas, violating federal standards for ozone, carbon monoxide and particulates.• But teamed with diesel oil in dual-fuel units, the result is less NOx and particulates plus no performance loss.• Raising injection pressures brings particulates down but puts NOx up; the same goes for many other design changes.• Chafee also proposed a five-year delay in setting specific limits for fine particulates, or soot, citing scientific uncertainty.• At times, the concentration of particulates in the air of some cities became dense enough to conduct electricity.• It is usually caused by the emission of particulates or nitrogen dioxide.• The exhaust will also have to be fitted with filters to trap the particulates and their carcinogenic PAHs.• But the bulk of the chemical run-off binds to particulates and is concentrated rather than dispersed evenly through the water column. 