An air pollution control equipment and pollution control equipment manufacturers directory including thermal oxidizers, air pollution equipment, odor control systems, electrostatic precipitators, mist eliminators, pollution control system, air pollution control systems, air pollution control system, air scrubbers, odor control, air pollution control, and oxidizers.  

Air Pollution Control Equipment Types and Terms

Types of Air Pollution Control Equipment

• Air scrubbers consist of a fan containing several filters that separate contaminants from clean air and recirculate the air into the atmosphere.
  
• Catalytic oxidizers utilize a metal catalyst, such as platinum, within the unit to speed the break down of hazardous compounds. The use of a catalyst allows the substance breakdown to occur at a lower temperature than that of a thermal oxidizer.
  
• Dust collectors (http://www.dustcollectingsystems.com/info/index.htm) use an online process to either retrieve usable granular solid or powder from process streams or to eliminate granular solid pollutants from exhaust gases before they are vented into the atmosphere.
  
• Electrostatic precipitators utilize grounded electrodes called collection plates to ionize and capture dust and particulate matter in contaminated air. These systems are often used prior to other pollution control equipment.
  
• Gas scrubbers use a high-energy liquid spray to remove gaseous pollutants, such as sulfur, from an air stream, either by absorption or chemical reaction.
  
• Incinerators are apparatuses, such as a furnace, designed to burn waste.
  
• Ionizing wet scrubbers remove acid gases and fine particulate that can include a variety of heavy metals such as antimony, lead and zinc from the air stream.
  
• Mist collectors, which consist of a filter containing mesh and steel wire, capture mists of water and oil created during industrial applications.
  
• Odor control systems neutralize unpleasant smelling gases.
  
• Oxidizers are chemicals that readily yield oxygen and can be used to start or to feed fires.
  
• Particulate control systems utilize systems, such as electrostatic precipitators (ESPs), baghouses, wet particulate scrubbers, mechanical/inertial collectors (cyclones/mutilcyclones) and high temperature/high pressure (HTHP) particulate control systems, to control ash that is emitted into the atmosphere through combustion, industrial processes, fugitive emissions and natural sources.
  
• Rotary concentrators compress air and gas streams containing small amounts of VOCs into concentrating streams containing greater volumes of VOCs, which makes it easier for oxidizers to break down.
  
• Thermal oxidizers heat contaminated air in order to break down hazardous compounds into carbon dioxide and water vapor, a process called oxidation. In order to conserve energy, many thermal oxidizers contain a heat exchanger (http://www.heatexchangers.org) that recovers and reuses the heat from incoming polluted air.
  
• Venturi scrubbers are wet scrubbers that collect extremely tiny (less than a micron) dust particles from the gas stream in a slurry system using an orifice to spray water into the vortex in the cyclone section.
  
• VOC abatement is a process in which VOCs are rendered inert by removing them from the point of generation, subjecting them to high temperature and long residence time and then discharging the resulting treated gas into atmosphere.
  
• VOC destruction is the oxidation process in which VOCs are heated by incineration or subjected to microorganisms (biodegradation) to produce carbon dioxide and water.
  
• Wet scrubbers are devices in which exhaust air is forced into a spray chamber wherein the water particles cause the dust to drop from the air stream.
  
  

Air Pollution Control Equipment Terms

Adsorption – The attachment of concentrated liquid or gaseous molecules to a solid or liquid surface. Unlike absorption, the substances, such as active carbon and silica gel, do not permeate one another.
 
Baghouse (Fabric Collector) – Dust collector containing fabric bags, which trap dust while allowing gases to move through the collector.

Certified Energy Manager (CEM) – International professional designation available through training and testing by the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE).

CFC (Chlorofluorocarbon) – Family of chemicals used as refrigerants, being tightly regulated and phased out of production due to stratospheric ozone depletion potential. Examples: R-11, R-12, R-113, R-114, R-115.
 
Cyclone Separator – Device that extracts fine particles from air or gas by centrifugal means.
 
Destruction Efficiency – The effectiveness by which an oxidizer eliminates VOCs exhausted from by the oxidization process.
 
Hazardous Air Pollutant (HAP) – A specific category of 189 particularly harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) designated as such by the EPA’s Clean Air Act.
 
Heat Exchanger Bypass – A system that will automatically modulate dampers in a thermal oxidizer to provide a safe route for the process exhaust in case there is a solvent overload.
 
Hydrocarbon – An organic compound composed of hydrogen and carbon. Many hydrocarbons are considered stable, as they only evaporate during heating and cooling processes, though some are considered volatile, because they evaporate under moderate conditions.
 
HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) Filter – Air filter capable of trapping a minimum of 99.97% of particles at least .3 microns in size. HEPA filters are a common component of air scrubbers.
 
Hopper – In pollution control systems, the area in which the collected particulate is stored.
 
Lower Explosive Limit (LEL) – The lowest concentration of pollutants that would lead to combustion if ignited.
 
Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) – A group of air pollutants released during industrial combustion applications that contribute to smog and acid rain.
 
Oxidation – Process involving the transformation of harmful compounds into safer compounds through the application of oxygen and heat.
 
Rapper – Part of an electrostatic precipitator that transfers dust from the collection plates to the hopper.
 
Rotor Concentrator – An add-on available for oxidation technology that reduces air volume and increases concentration of VOCs by directing the process stream through a continuously rotating wheel impregnated with adsorbent. The VOCs are adsorbed, the clean air is exhausted into the atmosphere and the wheel is then regenerated by passing through a stream of warm, low volume desorption gas, producing a concentrated stream, which an oxidizer can more efficiently destroy.
 
Tubular Precipitators – High-voltage electrostatic precipitators consisting of cylindrical collection plates that rotate around the discharge electrodes.
 
Turbulence – A fixed condition that is built into the equipment design in order to make sure that there is the correct mix of VOCs and oxygen for combustion.
 
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) – A group of pollutant compounds consisting primarily of carbon that, in combination with the sun’s radiation and oxygen, form ozone. VOCs are those substances, such as gasoline, alcohol, ethers and esters, that form a gas or vapor under moderate temperature and pressure conditions.