Focus on emission control
The publication of a new EU-wide pollution inventory, which allows industries to compare their environmental performance, is encouraging more chemical and pharmaceutical businesses to prioritise emissions control, says Air Products.
The pollution inventory or European Pollutant Emission Register was published earlier this year in response to the 1996 EU Directive on integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC). It focuses on a number of specific emissions, such as chlorinated solvents, a high proportion of which are produced by industries in France and the UK. It also identifies the UK as one of the main sources of VOC emissions including benzene, hydrogen cyanide, dichloroethane and non-methane volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Diana Raine, business manager for cryogenic applications, Air Products, explains: 'In the past, in the absence of comparative data, there has been a tendency for UK companies to believe that they are doing more than their counterparts in the EU to minimise air pollution. 'This inventory shows that in fact closer control may be necessary to ensure we meet any future emissions reduction targets which may be imposed.' The pollution inventory is just part of an overall tightening of environmental legislation designed to minimise pollution and specifically, reduce air emissions. In response, Air Products has developed a state-of-the-art cryogenic VOC recovery solution, called Air Products ExStream, which is efficient, compact and highly adaptable; capable of recovering even complex VOCs at low gas flow rates, below 300 Nm3/h. 'Cryogenic solvent recovery systems are a long term solution for a wide range of solvent-using installations and can help to enhance sustainability too by recovering VOCs which can be reused on site,' said Raine.