Abatement of odour emissions by UV/ozone oxidation process

Abstract

The growing expectations of the population and the increasingly stringent regulations about air pollution have resulted in the need to minimize and conveniently treat the waste gas from different emission sources. The emissions from a large variety of plants, including waste and wastewater treatment plants, result mainly from the degradation of organic matter. These emissions are composed of a complex of substances emitted at low concentrations from diffusive sources. These characteristics make complex their treatment in economically efficient conditions. The design and management of environmental protection and industrial plants, therefore, require the implementation of focused processes for the control of the target compounds. The present study shows the applicability of an UV-Ozone lab-scale system for odours and VOCs removal. An artificial gaseous stream contaminated by toluene, at different incoming concentrations, was treated evaluating the abatement efficiencies in terms of odours and total VOCs as a function of power and contact time. The residue ozone concentrations was determined in order to optimize the set-up conditions. The results were discussed with the aim of evaluating the feasibility of the investigated solution for the advanced treatment of the waste gas from environmental facilities. Removal efficiencies up tp 91% were reached for the investigated conditions. Lower inlet concentrations resulted in high residue ozone outgoing the processes and, thus, it resulted over dimensioned for inlet load lower than 1,22 mg per minute.