NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

TOPIC: METHODS FOR TREATING AIR

DISCHARGES FROM INDUSTRY

Presenter :DR J. TSHUMA

Management of Discharges to the Air
• Discharge or release of substances to the air
is regarded as air pollution
• Discharges to the air can be direct, by means
of a stack
• leaks from a building’s windows, doors, or
other openings referred to as “fugitive
emissions.”
Management of Discharges to the Air
• Management of discharges to the air is almost
always interrelated with management of
discharges to the water and/or the ground
• Air pollution control devices usually remove
substances from the air discharge and transfer
them to a liquid solution or suspension or to a
collector of solids
Atmospheric Pollutants

•A pollutant is anything
that has a detrimental
effect on people,
infrastructure or the
environment
•Primary pollutants are
emitted directly
•Secondary pollutants are
formed in the atmosphere
4
Pollution Cycle

Chemistry and transport

5
 Phases to the air pollution
cycle
There are three phases to the air pollution cycle:

• (1) the release or discharge at the source

• (2) the dispersal of pollutants in the
atmosphere
• (3) the reception of pollutants by humans,
animals, or inanimate objects
 Management of the air pollution
cycle
• Management of the first phase is a matter of
engineering, control, and operation of
equipment.
• second phase can be influenced by stack height,
but meteorology dictates the path of travel of
released pollutants.
• Because the motions of the atmosphere can be
highly variable in all dimensions, management of
the third phase, which is the ultimate objective of
air pollution control, requires knowledge of
meteorology and the influence of topography.
 Air pollution Control
Control of the discharges of air pollutants from
industries can be organized into 3 categories:

1. Reduction at the source

2. Containment
3. Removal by use of one or more treatment
technologies
 Reduction at the Source
Achieved by following these steps:

• Identifying each and every source within the entire

industrial facility.
• Substituting non-polluting process materials for those that
are hazardous or otherwise objectionable.
• Maintaining vigorous maintenance and preventive
maintenance programs
• Ensuring that accident and spill prevention procedures and
facilities are up to date
• Ensuring that emergency response facilities and
procedures are up to date
• Maintaining a rigorous program of analyzing past spills and
emergencies to avoid them in the future
 Containment
• refers to the absence of leaks, or of any type of
breach in structural integrity in buildings,
ductwork, storage tanks
• i.e. any location or facility from which air
pollutants could enter the environment without
such entrance resulting from the express
intention of the environmental managers
• Such unwanted discharges are called “fugitive
emissions”
 Containment
Hoods and Isolation Chambers
• can prevent air pollutants from contaminating
large volumes of air.
• It is always less expensive to treat a smaller
volume of more highly concentrated pollutant
than to remove the same mass of pollutant
from a larger volume of air or other gas.
(continued)
 Containment
Fans and Ductwork
• Fans of too low capacity allow air pollutants to
drift out of the containment system at the
source.
• Fans of too high capacity dilute the target
pollutants excessively, leading to increased
cost of treatment.
(continued)
 Treatment Systems for Control of
Particulates
There are five methods in general use for controlling
particulate emissions:

• Gravity separators
• Inertial separators
• Electrostatic precipitators
• Fabric filters
• Wet scrubbers
 Gravity Separators
• Are devices that provide quiescent conditions to
counteract the tendency of a particulate-laden gas
stream to sweep the particulates along with it as a
result of aerodynamic drag.

• Most are simple, open chambers, sometimes with

a mechanism at the bottom to remove collected
material.

• Normally used as pre-treatment devices, upstream

of more sophisticated equipment.
 Inertial Separators
• Use the differential specific gravity between particulates
and the gas that contains them.

• Cause the stream of flowing gas to change directions.

• Inertia of the particulates, being directly proportional to

the weight of each particle causes them to resist the
change in direction hence particulates are then propelled
out of the stream.

• Cyclones of various designs are the most common

examples of inertial separators.
 Electrostatic Precipitators
• Consist of a series of elements having an electrostatic
polarity that attracts particulates because of an
electrostatic charge of opposite polarity on the
surfaces of the particulates

• There are five types of ESPs in general use:

• Plate-wire precipitator
• Flat-plate precipitator
• Two-stage precipitator
• Tubular precipitator
• Wet precipitator
 Plate-Wire Precipitator
• Consists of parallel metal plates and wire
electrodes of high voltage.
• Voltages range between 20,000 - 100,000 V
• As the particulate-laden gas flows between the
parallel plates the particulates are attracted to
and adhere to the plates.
• plates must be cleaned periodically, usually by
“rapping,” and in some cases by water spray, and
the wires must be cleaned of collected dust as
well.
 Flat-Plate Precipitator

• consists of a series of parallel flat plates in

which some of the plates serve as the high-
voltage electrodes.
• Corona, needed to increase the surface charge
on the particles to be removed, are generated
in chambers preceding the ESP itself.
• As with wire-plate ESPs, the plates have to be
cleaned periodically.
 Two-Stage Precipitator
• the high-voltage electrodes precede the
collector electrodes, as opposed to their being
arranged in parallel as is the case with the
wire-plate ESP and the flat-plate ESP.
• The plates are normally cleaned by spraying
with water. In some instances, detergents are
added to the water.
 Tubular Precipitator
• named for its shape and has its high-voltage
wire coinciding with the axis of the tube.
• can fit into the stack because their shape is
similar to that of the stack.
• Tubular ESPs are cleaned with a water spray.
 Wet Precipitator
• If an ESP—wire-plate, flat-plate, two-stage, or
tubular—is operated with wet walls, it is
properly referred to as a wet precipitator.

• Wet walls are used when the increase in

particulate removal efficiency warrants the
added cost for capital, operation and
maintenance.
 Fabric Filters
• Use the mechanism of “physical barrier” plus a degree
of adsorption.
• Fabric woven from a wide variety of materials collects
particulates from a gas forced through it.
• As a coating of filtered-out particles builds up on the
surface of the filter fabric, this layer becomes an
additional filter which is usually more effective than
the fabric
• This is referred to as developing the filter
• Eventually, the layer becomes so thick that the filter as
a whole is too restrictive to pass the desired flow rate
of gas undergoing treatment.
• At this point, the filter is replaced.
 Wet Scrubbers
• used for removal of gases and other chemicals as
well as particulates, are the
• can be designed for a single target removal or
multipurpose removal.
• the components of a basic scrubber include a
vessel, some type of packing, a fan, or blower, a
reservoir for the scrubber fluid, and a pump for
the fluid.
• There are many options for additional features
and many optional configurations for the system as
a whole.
 Venturi Scrubbers
• are intended for removal of only particulates.
• consists of a restriction in the air transport
ductwork and spray nozzles located either in the
restricted zone, referred to as the “throat” of the
venturi or just upstream of the throat.
• throat is preceded by a “converging section” and
is followed by a “diverging section.”
• advantage of being relatively inexpensive in
terms of both first cost and costs for operation
• are relatively low-efficiency treatment devices
used for pre-treatment
 Tray Scrubbers
• used for pre- treatment or as the only treatment for
certain air streams
• basic components of a tray scrubber include a set of
orifices, or nozzles, a set of trays that may be
perforated
• orifices or nozzles direct the gas stream onto the trays,
which are covered with the scrubber fluid.
• As the stream of gas proceeds through the orifices, the
velocity of the gas increases rather suddenly.
• The particulates are carried by inertia into the scrubber
fluid and are thus removed from the air stream.