The equipment supplied was AirProtekt’s Honeycat® concentrator catalytic oxidation air pollution control system which treats the exhaust gases from the component finishing process to give a maximum running flowrate of 12,000 Nm3/hr at a temperature of 20°C with a normal VOC concentration of 170 mg N/m3 MEK, xylene and toluene. The solvent laden gases are ducted and pulled through a rotary honeycomb zeolite wheel.
The solvent from the process stream is adsorbed onto the hydrophobic zeolite in the honeycomb wheel. The clean gases are then transported into the main process fan inlet and pass via an exhaust stack to atmosphere. The concentrator’s honeycomb wheel zeolite rotor is continuously rotating to adsorb the VOCs which then pass into the regeneration zone. There they are removed by a small volume of pre-heated air which then passes into a small Honeycat catalytic oxidation system. The combination of the VOC concentrator and Honeycat catalytic oxidation system means very large process exhaust flows containing low quantities of VOCs can be treated. This type of system means that only 5% of the process flow is treated by the Honeycat catalytic oxidation system, which represents a reduction of 20:1.
“AirProtekt’s solution to the challenges posed by this aircraft component finishing application has now enabled the new production facility to comply with statutory emission regulations for VOCs. The new installation also extends the company’s global environmental policy,” said Trevor Lawton, AirProtekt’s managing director.
The Honeycat system also has a lightweight construction and requires no compressed air or natural gas.
