Environmental pollution related to odour emission has become in the last years an important public concern. Closeness of odour-causing facilities such as wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) to urban areas further aggravates the problem. Volatile sulphur compounds (VSC) are one of the main groups of odour causing compounds in WWTPs, especially in the sludge processing.
Nowadays, there is a variety of options available for the effective treatment of odour causing compounds emission. However, there is a need to assess in depth the efficiency of these technologies applied to the same process. Thus, this work is focused on the evaluation of different physico-chemical techniques (chemical scrubbers, adsorption, advanced oxidation processes) in order to minimize or reduce the VSC from sludge processing in WWTPs.
Esther Vegaa, María Martinb*
a Laboratorio de Tecnologías Limpias. Universidad de la Santísima Concepción. Alonso de Ribera 2850, Concepción (Chile).
b Laboratori d’Enginyeria Química i Ambiental (LEQUIA). Campus Montilivi. 17003 Girona (Spain).
The company QualityFry has developed the first patented frier in the world that is able to tackle the odour emission from the process of deep frying. This way, there is no need of installation of stacks or ventilation systems for these processes. Deep frying is a source of odour emission, as odorants are easily carried out to the atmosphere at temperatures of 175-190 ºC. If the gases emitted during deep frying are not collected and treated adequately, they can be a source of odour complaints on communities nearby.
Emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) in several industrial sectors are regulated by increasingly restrictive policies, requiring the implementation of control treatments. In recent years, we have been working on the scaling of the biotrickling filter (VOCUSTM) for its industrial application, and there are several companies in Europe that already use this technology to control their emissions.