YMEH 0002

Indoor and outdoor air pollution

Air Pollution Control

by

Dr. Dennis Y.C. Leung

Department of Mechanical Engineering
Course Co-ordinator
 Air Pollution Control

Topics to be covered:

• Approaches of air pollution control

• Considerations in selecting APC equipment
• Different types of dust control equipment
• Fugitive dust control
• Gaseous pollutants control
• Vehicular pollutants control
• Indoor air pollutants control
Approaches of Air Pollution Control

1. LIMITATION / PROHIBITION OF EMISSIONS BY

MEANS OF LAWS / LEGISLATIONS

• determine which substances should be limited,

and to what extent they should be limited,

• determine the effects of each substance on

health, damage to property & esthetic values,

• find out the interaction of different pollutant

substances etc.
This can further be classified into 2 categories:

a. Long – term control

b. Short- term control

 LONG-TERM CONTROL:

• involves a legislated set of measures to be

adopted over a multi-year period
 Figure 1 Elements of a comprehensive air pollution control strategy for a region

Comprehensive
air pollution
control strategy

Long-term Short-term
control control

urban planning Rescheduling Programmed Rescheduling Immediate

and zoning of activities reduction in of activities reduction in
the quantity of emissions
material emitted

Requirements for long-term planning Requirements for real-time control

•Air quality objective •Air quality objective
•Airshed model •Dynamic model
•Survey of control techniques and costs •Rapid communications
•Meteorological probabilities •Strict enforcement of measures
Kyoto conference on curbing CO2 and
greenhouse gas
Country 1990 level
EU countries -8%
U.S.A. -7%
Japan -6%
Russia, New Zealand 0
Australia +8%
Ireland +10%
SHORT-TERM CONTROL (episode control):

• involves shutdown & slowdown procedures

that are adopted over periods of several
hours to several days under adverse
meteorological conditions
 Element of a real-time air pollution control system.
Meteorological
prediction

Prediction -
simulation

Alert level Emergency Air quality

Control Atmosphere
procedures Emission
Emission
standards sources
Emission standard
enforcement

Stack monitoring
system

Automatic air
monitoring network
 Approaches of Air Pollution control (cont.)
2. PREVENTION

What means are available to prevent air

pollution from occurring?

Aside from shutting down all polluters,

there are means available or potentially
available to remove all or part of the
pollutants to the extent necessary to
prevent serious atmospheric
contamination.

Air pollution control devices

What are the driving
forces for controlling
air pollution?
 Driving forces for air pollution control

1) Environmental protection

2) Occupational health consideration in workplace

3) Social consideration

4) Legal limitation imposed by government

What considerations should be taken
when selecting air pollution control
equipment?
1. Environmental

• Ambient conditions

• Maximum allowable emissions (emission

standard)

• Contribution of APC system to wastewater,

land pollution and noise pollution problems

• Aesthetic considerations (visible steam etc.)

An incincerator
in Austria
A power plant in Germany
2. Engineering

• Contaminant characteristics

• Gas stream characteristics

• Design & performance characteristics of

the particular control system
3. Economic

• Capital cost (equipment, installation,

engineering, etc.)

• Operation cost (utilities, maintenance, etc.)

• Expected equipment lifetime and salvage

value
The final choice of equipment is usually
dictated by that equipment capable of
achieving compliance with regulatory
codes at the lowest cost (total cost include
capital cost, maintenance and operation
costs).
 It should be noted that:
In view of the relatively HIGH COSTS often associated with
pollution control system, engineers today are directing
considerable effort toward PROCESS MODIFICATION to
eliminate as much pollution problem as possible at the source.

•Evaluating alternative manufacturing & production techniques:

e.g. use of LPG stove instead of wood stove in producing lotus
moon cake

•Substitution of raw materials:

e.g. substitute high S fuels by low S fuels

• Improved process control methods:

e.g. NOx reduction by better controlling combustion process
 Different Types of Air Pollution Control
Equipment
1) Mechanical 5) Absorber
Collector
2) Baghouse 6) Adsorber
3) Electrostatic 7) Incinerator
Precipitator
4) Wet Scrubber 8) Condenser

Particulates Gaseous removal

removal
 Commonly used air pollution
control methods / techniques

• Industrial application
- particulate matter (PM)
- gaseous pollutant

• Fugitive emission control

• Vehicular emission control

• Indoor air pollution control

Commonly used equipment for
particulate control
 PM removal
Electrostatic precipitator (ESP)
• Widely used to reduce particulate emissions in
many industrial applications,

• Designed to collect particles & liquid aerosols at a

very high collection eff. (>99%)

• Capable to handle large exhaust gas volume at

high temp., therefore widely used in utility
boilers, incinerator, cement kilns, furnaces.
 Advantages

- High removal efficiency (>99%) for coarse and

fine particulate

- Very small particles can be collected

- Dry dusts can be collected for recovery of

valuable material (e.g. fly ash)

- Small pressure and temperature drops

- Designed to operate continuously with little

maintenance over long periods of time
- Few moving parts – reduce maintenance

- Can be used at high temp. (700°C) & high pressure

(<150 psi)

- Can be used to collect acid and tar mists which are

difficult to be removed by other methods

- Can handle very large gas flow rates (> 2 x 106

m3/hr)

- Low power consumption and hence low operating

cost
 Disadvantages

- High capital cost

- Not easily adaptable to variable condition

(i.e. flows, temp., particulate loadings)

- Some particles with extremely high or

low resistivity are very difficult to be
collected
 Application area

- Incinerator,
- utility boiler,
- furnaces,
- refineries, smelters,
- paper mills,
- small household air-conditioning system
 PM Removal
Fabric filter
• It is one of the most common techniques for
collecting dust.

• A filter generally is any porous structure

composed of granular or fibrous material which
tends to retain the particulate as the carrier gas
passes through the voids of the filter.

• Two basic types of filters are usually used:-

Disposable and non-disposable (more commonly
used industrially)
A typical baghouse
 Advantages

- Extremely high collection eff. on both

coarse and fine particulates (> 99.9%)

- Collected dust is recovered dry for

subsequent processing/disposal
 Disadvantages

- Temp. > 300°C require special refractory

mineral or metallic fabrics that are still in the
developmental stage

- Conc. of some dusts in the collector (~59 g/m3)

may cause explosion hazard if a spark or flame is
admitted by accident. Fabrics can burn if readily
oxidizable dust is being collected
 Application area

- Vacuum cleaner,
- air conditioning system,
- ash and material handling plant,
- power plant,
- cement plant, etc.
 The End
Thank you!