For industrial facilities across Australia, operation is dependent on compliance with both the national EPA regulations on hazardous chemical emissions and local council regulations. While the national environment protection standards focus on health and safety, local councils have policies and guidelines with focus on happy neighbours.
All industrial facilities must meet and maintain health, safety, odour, visual, and noise standards before any operation can commence. Making it even more complicated, each local council will have varying regulations and enforcement, depending on the location, surroundings, and prior complaints from the neighbourhood.
The first step towards achieving the required operation standards for any facility is to meet individual State or Territory EPA emission regulations to ensure that the site is not hazardous.
If you are having difficulty achieving certification, the team at Camfil Airepure can point you in the right direction. Once the legal compliance with the EPA emissions regulations is achieved, the next step is to engage Camfil Airepure to assess odour and find strategies for its dilution.
For serious odour issues, an independent consulting firm that specialises in mapping odours with changing wind directions should be engaged to "map" the odour problem and assess remediation strategies. This will help significantly in dealings with the local council in terms of the time allowed to solve the issues and a method of gaining accord that the remediation steps will be accepted by council.
Through experience - Camfil Airepure have found an increasing need to provide industrial facilities with new approaches for dealing with malodorous gases and exhaust systems. Growing public concerns, stricter EPA emission regulations, and the drive for greater operational efficiency and performance have consequently shaped the development, design, and capabilities of new odour control technologies.
To solve these challenges, Camfil Airepure introduces the Strobic Air Tri-Stack™ - a high-performing, energy-efficient, reliable, and cost-effective odour control and process fume exhaust system.
Considerations for Meeting the Industrial Facility Emission & Odour Requirements
As one of the primary concerns for manufacturing and processing facilities, various odour control methods are used and tested, depending on the relative needs for odour mitigation. Conventional methods include chemical treatments and the use of sophisticated tools, like thermal oxidizers, scrubbers, filters and precipitators. While these systems are effective and reasonably efficient at removing 60-90% of odorous gases, removing the final 10-40% of odours becomes ruinously costly due to the requirements for additional hardware, energy consumed and chemical additives.
Mixed flow impeller systems like Strobic Air Tri-Stack from Camfil Airepure has proven to be cost effective in the removal of this final portion of odours, as it both dilutes the odour and moves it high beyond the building wind envelope to assist with effective dispersion and long term odour destruction in the atmosphere. The systems have a very low visual profile and may also lighten the load on the initial odour treatment systems upstream, lowering installation and operational costs.
Compared with traditional methods of odour dilution, the Strobic Air Tri-Stack offers the following environmental benefits:
- A large reduction in the amount of energy utilisation which results in significant reduction in carbon utilisation and costs on production and waste disposal.
- Minimal visual or sound impact on neighbours
- Effective odour dilution with very low maintenance and no costly chemicals or water use requirements.
Strobic Air Tri-Stack offers higher efficiency and performance than conventional centrifugal exhaust fans and stacks; allowing dilution, chemical resistance and the capacity to deal with a vast range of inlet flows, even with very high static pressure loads.
With the mixed flow impeller technology like the Strobic Tri-Stack, the dilution process starts when fresh air is drawn in at the bypass dampers and then at two points in the nozzle system. Fresh air is mixed here with the contaminated exhaust air until the mixture reaches the design target concentration levels. The diluted fume exhaust is propelled into the air at high velocity up to 30 metres high (preventing re-entrainment to the building) while more than 500% of outside fresh air can be added into exhaust fumes. In the process, the odour is diluted to below the odour threshold, as effective atmospheric disbursement occurs.
Conventional notions of using taller exhaust stacks to disperse exhaust air to suitable heights away from the building has proven to be costly and draw unnecessary attention to sensitive sites. Additionally, they may be a visual eyesore that can be subject to neighbourhood complaints and reduce property prices. Through technology improvements in the development of industrial air filters and exhaust systems, such as the Strobic Air Tri-Stack, the massive height requirement for conventional stacks is no longer necessary due to the availability of a low profile design with high exhaust velocity and effective dilution control.
Wind studies of the facility and surrounding area are useful tools to determine wind velocity, dilution values and effective stack height requirements, resulting in the lowest level of investment to meet the odour dilution levels that are required to meet the EPA and local council guidelines. Experience has shown that Camfil Airepure customers have been able to combine local wind dispersion patterns with effective exhaust stack heights of as low as 20m and a 2x dilution of odour to solve their problems, creating cleaner, safer environments and happy neighbours.
Benefits of the Camfil Airepure Strobic Odour Abatement Solution
- Re-entrainment prevention. The acceleration of the diluted fume exhaust up to 50 metres high into the air enable atmospheric disbursement and the prevention of odorous air from re-entering the facility through openings like doors, windows, and fresh air ventilation systems.
- Odour Elimination. The highly effective dilution capabilities of Tri-Stack fans aided by the entrainment of more than 250% of outside fresh air into the airstream above the roof during the process help facilitate effective fume or odour control and elimination.
- Noise reduction at the property line. Unlike the centrifugal fans with maintenance hungry, free standing motors, belts and pulleys, the Tri-Stack system exhibits quiet operation due to its use of direct drive, highly efficient motors and a more efficiently designed blade configuration. The system can also be fitted with optional sound attenuation accessories to meet the most stringent sound requirements.
- Low-profile design. The Tri-Stack system has low visibility from the property line, effectively ensuring reduced neighbour shock - unlike large highly visible "smoke stacks. The physical nozzle heights meet or exceed compliance values to standards and ordinances that govern the height requirements for exhaust stacks.
- Lower energy costs. Aided by its efficient mixed flow impeller design, Tri-Stack uses lesser energy than other similar designs. This low energy consumption capability does not only make Tri-Stack cost-efficient, but also an effective ROI-generating solution. Camfil Airepure also provides other energy-saving accessories, like the heat recovery systems for applications that require additional energy recovery.
- Intelligent system through the Tri-Stack® Smart System. For maximum efficiency, Tri-Stack utilises the Tri-Stack® Smart System, creating an intelligent ventilation system that provides variable air volume control through automated damper, sequencing and fan motor VSD control. This system assures the maintenance of safe ventilation levels while also minimising energy costs and carbon footprint.
Cost-effective Odour Abatement Solution
Compared with conventional exhaust stack systems, Tri-Stack is a highly cost-effective solution. The cost reduction is mostly provided by the following features:
- Fast, simplified installation. Tri-Stack has three easy-to-mount modules, of modest weights and dimensions that can be safely crane lifted and assembled in less than half a day. These features make for an easy installation into appropriately braced existing roof structures. They do not only eliminate the need for extra hardware and complex installation processes, but also lower the installation and engineering costs. Moreover, these features take out the requirements for more expensive equipment and prevent work disruption.
- Efficient designs, maximised performance, lower energy consumption. Tri-Stack has a high-performance, computer-designed and state-of-the-art features that are designed to reduce drive power requirements reduce energy consumption, and lower operating costs. These include the exhaust nozzle that is built to increase effective stack heights through improved stack outlet velocities, as well as the unique fan impellers with a proprietary designed fan blade with no stall region - unlike centrifugal and axial fans. The use of variable frequency drives permitted by its non-stall characteristic also contributes to its efficiency, extremely low vibration levels and capability to reduce energy consumption. Moreover, the system operates at substantially low noise levels for the quantities of air moved and has optional silencers for extremely sound sensitive situations.
- Maintenance-free, longer operational lifetimes. Tri-Stack has drive motors that can run for years under normal conditions, least at 200,000 hours in a typical conditions. The absence of belts, pulleys, flex connectors, or spring vibration isolators also makes it virtually maintenance-free. Routine bearing lubrication (each six months) and routine safety inspections (mechanical, electrical) are its only needs.
For more information about Strobic Air Tri-Stack, its wide range of applications, and substantial advantages over conventional systems, including benefits on cost, operation, and environmental impact, visit www.airepure.com.au. In New Zealand, contact www.airepure.co.nz. Product sheets and technical specification brochures are also available here for download. For inquiries, you can call 1300-886-353.