Odors treatment: Physicochemical technologies

Abstract

Taking into consideration simple economic factors and/or social responsibility, nowadays, every industry tends to analyze its productive organization through total quality management, which includes environmental and safety issues such as avoiding annoyances or nuisances by odor emissions; in this, the food industry is no exception. However, even though many efforts have been developed to prevent and control odorous emissions at the production unit level, these measures usually are not enough to assure good quality solutions for all kinds of odor problems. When this happens, effective treatment or abatement measures must be considered. This chapter's scope is to describe the main technologies available to reduce and control volatile organic compounds (VOC) and malodorous emissions from industrial processes, especially those of interest for the food industry [Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 1995]. The main concepts, principles, fundamentals, advantages, and disadvantages of each technology will be generally referred and discussed.Indeed, controlling odors is an important consideration for protecting the environment and the community's good will, but it is worth remembering that operational improvement usually requires strong competencies, capabilities, and experienced technological assistance. When deciding technological investments, technology isn't the solution; it only enables people to fi nd good answers for solving problems. Among all technologies, simplicity and adequacy must always be our priority; in accord with the philosophic and scientifi c principle of Occam's razor-"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitas"-everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.