Catalytic Oxidation System Lowers Aircraft Component Finishing Facility’s Running and Energy Costs

The UK’s air pollution control specialist, AirProtekt, has supplied, installed and commissioned turnkey air pollution control equipment to abate VOC fumes and odours from three solvent based spray painting booths and baking ovens at an aircraft component finishing facility.

The Honeycat® concentrator catalytic oxidation air pollution control and energy saving system treats the exhaust gases from the component finishing process to give a maximum running flowrate of 12,000Nm3 hr-1 at a temperature of 20°C with a normal VOC concentration of 170 mg Nm-3 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 VOC’s which then pass into the regeneration zone where the VOCs are removed by a small volume of preheated 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 VOC’s can be treated by a cost effective system. 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. With the increased VOC concentration the operating cost for the total system is very low when compared with alternative systems.

“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,” explained Trevor Lawton, AirProtekt’s managing director. “The Honeycat® concentrator catalytic oxidation air pollution control and energy saving system also benefits from much lower capital and running costs compared with an alternative thermal oxidation plant solution.

Overall, the AirProtekt is a very low energy solution for both start up and online running conditions. The compact catalytic oxidation system also requires only minimal upgrades to a customer’s infrastructure. The other benefits of the system include:
• Lightweight construction
• Requires no compressed air
• Requires no natural gas
• Very quiet in operation