AIR POLLUTION

CONTROL
TECHNOLOGY
AIR POLLUTION AND NOISE
BNA 30803

11/29/2023 Dr. Nor Hazren Abdul Hamid

 What is Air Pollution Control?

• Air Pollution Control, the techniques employed to

reduce or eliminate the emission into the atmosphere of
substances that can harm the environment or human
health
• The control of air pollution is one of the principal areas
of pollution control, along with wastewater treatment,
solid-waste management, and hazardous-waste
management
 Objectives of Control Equipment

• Prevention of nuisance
• Prevention of physical damage to property
• Elimination of health hazards to plant personnel
• Recovery of valuable waste product
• Minimization of economic losses
• Improvement of product quality
PM2.5 refers to the diameter measured in microns
of particulates such as ammonia, carbon, nitrates
and sulfate…
Which are small enough to pass into the
bloodstream and cause diseases such as
emphysema and cancer
 What to control?

• Control of particulate
• Control of dangerous gases
 Particulate control equipment

1. Cyclone Separator

2. Fabric Filters

3. Wet Collectors (Venturi Scrubbers)

4. Electrostatic Precipitators

5. Dry Collectors
 What is Particulate Matter
(PM)?
• Particulate matter is any finely divided liquid or solid
substance
• Examples: smoke, dust, some forms of fine mist

• Any particulate less than 10 μm is defined as PM10 and is

regulated as a criteria pollutant.
• Thus, control devices used today, to prevent particles from
reaching the ambient air, focus on capturing particulate
matter ≤ 10μm in diameter
 1. Cyclone Separators
• Cyclones use inertia to remove particles from the gas
stream
• Particles in the gas stream are forced toward the
cyclone walls by the centrifugal force of the spinning
gas and eventually drop out of the bottom of the
collector device
• It can remove 10 – 50 μm particle size

• Used mostly in industries

 Efficiency
Cyclone efficiency generally increase Cyclone efficiency will decrease
with: with increases in:
a. Particle size
a. Gas viscosity
b. Inlet duct velocity
b. Body diameter
c. Cyclone body length
c. Gas exit diameter
d. No. of gas revolutions

e. Dust loading d. Gas inlet duct area

f. Smoothness of the cyclone inner e. Gas density

wall
 Pros and Cons of Cyclones
Advantages of Cyclones
• Low capital cost
• No moving part
• Few maintenance requirements
• Low operating costs
Disadvantages of Cyclones
• Relatively low PM collection
efficiencies
• Unable to handle sticky or tacky
materials

• • High efficiency units may

Relatively low-pressure drop
experience high-pressure drops
• Dry collection and disposal

• Relatively small space

requirements
 2. Fabric Filters
• Fabric collectors use filtration to separate dust particulates
from dusty gases
• Flue gas is allowed to pass through a woven fabric, which
filters out particulate matter
• Small particles are retained on the fabric by sieving and
other mechanism
• The most efficient, simple and cost effective types of dust
collectors available and can achieve a collection efficiency
of more than 99% for very fine particulates
 Factors affecting efficiency

• Gas filtration velocity

• Particle characteristics
• Fabric characteristics
• Cleaning mechanism
Cleaning intensity and frequency are
important variables in determining removal
efficiency because the dust cake can affect the
fine particulate removal capability of a fabric

In general, collection efficiency increases with

increased filtration velocity and particle size
 Cleaning Mechanisms
• Mechanical Shaking
• A popular cleaning method (simple and effective)
• The tops of bags are attached to a shaker bar, which is moved horizontally, to
clean the bags

• Reverse-air Cleaning
• Another popular cleaning method
• Sometime less effective cleaning mechanism than mechanical shaking
• Used only in cases where the dust release easily from the fabric

• Pulse-jet Cleaning
• Can treat high dust loadings, operate at constant pressure drop, required less
space than other type of fabric filters
• During pulse-jet cleaning, a short burst of air is injected into the bags. The wave
of air flexes the fabric, pushing it away from the cage, and then snaps it back
dislodging the particulate matter.
Pulse-jet cleaning
Fabric Characteristics
 3. Scrubber or wet collectors
• The Venturi scrubber uses wet impingement (liquid stream) to trap
gas-laden particles in a liquid form
• Flue gas made to push up against a down falling water current

• Particulate matter mix up with water thus falls down and gets
removed
• Particle collection efficiencies of venturi scrubbers range from 70
to greater than 99%, depending on the application
• Venturi scrubbers are applied where it is necessary to obtain
high collection efficiencies for fine PM
• Wet scrubber generate waste in the form of a slurry or wet sludge,
where the need for both wastewater treatment and solid waste
disposal
Venturi Scrubber
 Pros and Cons
Advantages
• Capable of handling flammable and
explosive dusts
• Can handle mists in process exhausts
• Relatively low maintenance
• Simple in design and easy to install
• Collection efficiency can be varied
• Provides cooling for hot gases
• Neutralizes corrosive gases and
dusts
Disadvantages
• Effluent liquid can create water
pollution problems
• Waste product collected wet
• High potential for corrosion problems
• Final exhaust gas requires reheating to
avoid visible plume
• Collected PM may be contaminated,
and not recyclable
• Disposal of waste sludge may be very
expensive
 4. Electrostatic Precipitators
(ESP)
• PM control device that uses electrical forces to move
particles entrained within an exhaust stream onto
collection surfaces
• ESP separates particles from the gas stream by electrically
charging the particles
• Works on the principle of electrical charging of particulate
matter (-ve) and collecting it in a (+ve) charged surface
• The collection efficiency of an ESP is quite reliably about
99% for particles less than 10 μm
Control Equipment For
Gaseous Emissions:
 Introduction
• Most of the air pollution produced by stationary sources
results from the incomplete combustion of fuel or
industrial processing
• Gaseous industrial pollutants can include:
• Acid Gases (hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid….)
• Inorganic Gases (Sulfur Oxides, Ammonia…)
• Organic Gases (Ethylene, Benzene, VOC or hazardous air
pollutants (HAPs)

• Thus, this class will provide you with a description and

review of air pollution control technologies for
dangerous gases.
Methods to Control Gaseous Pollutant

• Condensation

• Absorption

• Adsorption
 Condensation
• Condensation is the process of reducing a gas or vapour to a liquid.
Any gas can be reduced to a liquid by lowering its temperature
and/or increasing its pressure
• Condensers are typically used as pre-treatment devices. They can
be used ahead of absorbers, adsorbers, and incinerators to reduce
the total gas volume to be treated by more expensive control
equipment
• Condensers used for pollution control are contact condensers and
surface condensers
• Contact and surface condensers dispose of waste gas by freezing or
condensing the pollutant into a more solid substance
• In a contact condenser, the gas comes into contact with cold liquid

• In a surface condenser, the gas contacts a cooled surface in which

cooled liquid or gas is circulated, such as the outside of the tube

• Removal efficiencies of condensers typically range from 50% to

more than 95%, depending on design and applications

• Most condensers operate on systems with only a single

contaminant compound or a mixture of compounds that does not
usually require separation
Surface Condenser: Contact Condenser:

The coolant is separated from the The coolant and vapour stream are
vapours by tubular heat transfer physically mixed. They leave the
surfaces, and leave the device by condenser as a single exhaust stream
separate exits
 Absorption
• Absorption is a process used to remove a gaseous pollutant by dissolving
it in a liquid

• Gaseous contaminants that are soluble in aqueous liquids can be removed

in absorbers

• For example, the same way that sugar is absorbed in a glass of water
when stirred

• Wet scrubber similar to those described above for controlling PM may be

used for gas absorption

• However, a major disadvantages of this process is the amount of

wastewater created
The efficiency of this process depends
on:

1. Amount of surface contact between gas & liquid

2. Contact time

3. Concentration of absorbing medium

4. Speed of the reaction between the absorbent and gases

 The suitability of gas absorption as a pollution
control-method is generally dependent on the
following factors:

1. Availability of suitable solvent

2. Required removal efficiency

3. Pollutant concentration in the inlet vapour

4. Capacity required for handling waste gas

5. Recovery value of the pollutant(s)

 List of equipment applying principle
of absorption:
1. Packed bed tower

2. Plate tower

3. Bubble-cap plate tower

4. Spray tower

5. Liquid jet scrubber absorber

6. Gas scrubber

7. Venturi scrubber

8. Cyclone scrubber
 Applications in Industries:

• Chemical

• Aluminum

• Coke and ferroalloy

• Food and agriculture

• Chromium electroplating
 Adsorption

• In this process, the effluent gases are passed through adsorber

which contains the solids of porous structure

• In this phenomenon, molecules from a gas or liquid will be

attached in a physical way to a surface

• The commonly used adsorbers are activated carbon, silica gel,

activated alumina, activated bauxite

• Adsorbers may be either regenerative or non-regenerative

Regenerative vs. non-generative

• Non-regenerative adsorbers are not typically used due to

problems of solid waste disposal

• Regenerative systems are best used when the

concentration of the pollutant in the gas stream is
relatively high

• By regenerating the carbon, the same activated carbon

material can be used again and again
 Methods of Regeneration

1. Thermal Swing Regeneration

2. Vacuum Regeneration

3. Pressure Swing Adsorption

 Control Devices
1. Fixed bed Adsorber
It consists of an adsorbent bed (granulated activated carbon) through
which the polluted gas is passed from the top, which then travels
downwards and leaves through the bottom. The single bed adsorber may
be operated to the breakthrough point and then must be regenerated

2. Moving bed Adsorber

It consists of a cylindrical bed which slowly rotates about its axis
The adsorber bed moves from polluted fluid to the regeneration fluid to
the drying and cooling fluid
 Additional Control
Devices For Gaseous
Pollutants
 Control Devices for Gaseous
Pollutants
1. Thermal Incinerators

2. Catalytic Incinerators

3. Flares

4. Boilers and Process Heaters

 Catalytic Incinerators

Thermal Incinerators
Flares
 Conclusion
• The best control measure, of course, is prevention.

• However, as long as there are fossil fuel emissions from

our coal-burning factories and gas-burning automobiles,
there will be air pollution.
• The key to easing future impact is control. The sources
of air pollution are many, although most authorities
identify SO2, NO2, ozone and PM as the major pollutants