The Critical Role of Scrubbers in Meeting Stricter Pollution Standards
With stricter air pollution regulations, scrubbers have become essential in industries where neighbourhoods and the environment are exposed to potentially contaminated gases. When used effectively, scrubbers can achieve high removal efficiency of harmful gas particles, ensuring that emissions released into the environment are safe.
What is an industrial scrubber?
A scrubber is a short word for Air Pollution Control Equipment or Exhaust Air Treatment Systems. They remove pollutants from exhaust gases by capturing and neutralizing contaminants using liquids. This way, industrial scrubbers reduce industrial carbon footprint and realize compliance with local or regional legislation.
The ‘Scrubbing’ refers to the adsorption phase where gases are neutralized by the components being dissolved by the liquid.
Scrubber Applications:
Scrubbers are an interesting alternative for Combustion or Regenerative Thermal Oxidizers due to the lack of gas costs. Industrial Scrubbers can be applied in multiple applications, like:
- Chemical Gas Scrubbers
- Ammonia Scrubbers
- Chlorine Scrubbers
- Sulfuric Acid Scrubbers
- Scrubbers for the Food Production Industry
How do gas scrubbers work?
Scrubbers are devices designed to neutralize harmful components in industrial air or waste gas streams. Their primary function is to remove problematic gas particles from emissions before releasing them into the atmosphere and therefore they reduce pollution.
The operation of a scrubber generally involves bringing the gas stream into contact with a washing liquid. This contact allows certain gaseous components to dissolve in the liquid. This process, known as absorption, transfers the components from the gas phase to the liquid phase. The effectiveness of this process depends on how soluble the gaseous components are in the chosen liquid.
Selecting the appropriate fluid as the absorption agent is critical. While water is commonly used, various organic or inorganic washing liquids can also serve this purpose. Often, chemicals or micro-organisms are added to these liquids to help convert or neutralize the dissolved gases.
Read more on How wet scrubbers work or How dry scrubbers work to clean emissions in manufacturing.
What are the types of Industrial Scrubbers?
The biggest differentiator are Dry and Wet Scrubbers. Even though Dry Scrubbers have some suitable applications, Wet Scrubbers tend to be the most efficient in handling contaminated emissions from industrial processes.
Below a summary of all Wet Scrubber Types:
- Venturi Scrubbers or In-line Venturi Scrubbers
- Packed Bed Scrubbers
- Venturi-Packed Combination Scrubbers
- Cyclone Scrubbers
- Energy Recovery Scrubber (Venturi Scrubber combined with an integrated Heat Exchanger to recover waste heat from the scrubbing liquid).
Please share your challenge with us and together we can discuss what type of scrubber suits you site best.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of Industrial Scrubbers
Even though we mainly see the benefits of using Wet Scrubbers, there are also some disadvantages that need to be considered.
| Advantages of Wet Scrubbers | Disadvantages of Wet Scrubbers |
|---|---|
| High Efficiency in collecting pollutants and removing them from the exhaust stream | Water usage. Purged liquid and disposed sludge needs replacement. |
| Broad application: Able to remove harmful contaminants from both high-temperature as humid gas streams. Collects a combination of particulate matter and gases | Slurry disposal. The concentrated slurry with toxic contaminants needs to be disposed of. |
| Compact size. Often easy to retrofit into existing manufacturing facility. | Acidic Slurries can be highly corrosive |
| Low pressure drop increasing efficiency | In some cases, regular maintenance remains needed. |
| Able to handle flammable and explosive dust | May cause plume formation |
| Provides cooling of hot gases | Susceptible to freezing |
*The biggest advantage is choosing for a tailored solution instead of a standard system that will always underperform. Operational Costs can be reduced and performance increased.
Energy Recovery & Reduction
with clever engineering, this potential can be harnessed to reduce a facility’s carbon footprint and energy consumption.
Examples how a tailored solution lead to increased performance:
- Adding self-cleaning in-line Venturi Beds or rods to remove dust efficiently
- Minimized water and chemicals consumption by integration of mist eliminator and filtering the reagent so that it could be reused in the process.
- Replacing high maintenance condensers leading to no fouling and no risk for freezing.
- Adding a second stage for Odor Removal.
- Adding a Cyclone Separator for prefiltering
- Integrating a Heat Exchanger to recover waste heat. Subsequentially, a Heat Pump may be integrated to upgrade low grade waste heat.
- No over-dimensioning needed leading to lower investment needed and lower operating costs due to water/reagent consumption and energy usage.
Why choose JOA to advise, design & build your Exhaust Air Treatment System?
If you are looking for the best industrial scrubber supplier, you first need to accept that a standard solution will not suffice. Only a tailor-made Industrial Air Scrubber will be able to fully meet and exceed your requirements.
As a Clean Tech company, JOA has 4 main differentiators that result in the best possible solutions for Emission Control and Energy Recovery:
- Truly tailor-made solutions instead of standard equipment selected by price instead of value and long-term ROI.
- Thorough Air Technical Modeling and CFD Analysis to validate our designs and ensure 1st time right implementation
- Always based on a Pre-Engineering Study including Site Visit, Measurements, Concept Design and Budget Quotation
- Trusted by the largest manufacturers with the most complex industrial processes, worldwide.
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Frequently Asked Questions
The costs of an industrial scrubber may range from €250.000,- and €2.500.000 depending on a multitude of considerations and requirements. Please read more about the costs of industrial scrubbers in our blog: What does a scrubber cost?
Up to 99,9% is certainly possible at 10 microns.
The scrubbing liquid is frequently heated by the exhaust gas. This heat can be recovered by a Heat Exchanger. An industrial Heat Pump can upgrade lower temperature waste heat. Read more about how heat pumps improve industrial processes.
Very basically, a scrubbers washes flue gas clean.
The following substances are most frequently removed by scrubbers:
– CO2
– SO2 (Sulfur dioxide) and SOx (Sulfur Oxide)
– NOx (Nitrogen Oxide)
– (Chromic) Acid Gases
– Fluorides
– Chlorides
– Particulate Matter (e.g. Volatile Organic Compounds)
Maybe you also like our blog on How to handle Ammonia Emissions in industrial processes, or How to handle SO2 Emissions.
There are similarities between both, but the main difference is that a Dust Collection System uses Filters that need replacement over time. Another difference is that Dust Collectors are mainly used ‘inside’ production facilities to create Healthy Work Environments and Explosion Safety.
By using liquids, scrubbers can handle more hazardous, explosive or toxic contaminants and particulate matter like combustible dusts, adhesives, soluble gases and fine particulates that are too small for filters.
Generally, most scrubbers are made of Stainless Steel. Especially in the Food or Consumer Goods industry, Stainless Steel has all major benefits regarding durability, costs and maintenance & cleaning. In some cases, FRP (Fibre-reinforced plastic) or Composites are used to build scrubbers due to the aspects of the gas stream (e.g. abrasiveness or corrosion).
The most common is simple Water (H2O). Other solvent that are able to absorb contaminants are Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH), Calcium Hydroxide (CaOH2) and Sodium Carbonate (Na2CO3).
