Manufacturers of Clean-air Technology and Suppliers of Services in This Field Are Enjoying Full Order Books and Rising Sales

Advanced technology from Germany is very much in demand around the world. This trend is also being reflected at IFAT 2008. So far 26 companies involved in the field of waste-gas detoxification and air-pollution control have registered to take part in IFAT 2008. This is 50 percent more than at the last event. IFAT 2008, the International Trade Fair for Water, Sewage, Refuse and Recycling takes place this year from 5 to 9 May in Munich.

The metal-processing industry, waste-incineration plants, power stations and chemicals and pharmaceuticals companies all have one thing in common - their production processes generate waste gas that contains large quantities of harmful substances.
These unwanted emissions are mostly fine particles in different compositions and grit sizes, but they also include cooling lubricants, sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, dioxins and furans as well as substances with a strong odour.

In the wake of a drive to cut these harmful emissions in Germany, a strong industry has developed that offers systems, components and services for industrial and commercial applications.
Physical, chemical and biological processes are available to extract solid, liquid and gaseous substances as well as smells. Extractors based on filters and on electrostatic processes are of great importance, because they not only cleanse but can in some systems remove valuable substances from the waste gas, for example metal dust.

The air-pollution control section of the VDMA (Verband Deutscher Maschinenund Anlagenbau), Germany`s engineering federation, estimates that in 2007 sales of aircleansing technology manufactured in Germany
for industrial and commercial applications reached around 1.6 billion euros, which is a rise of over ten percent on the year before. Over half of the orders are coming from abroad.
Here, too, demand rose last year in double-digit figures, says the VDMA. The most important foreign markets are the US, France, Italy, China, Switzerland and Great Britain. There was also a noticeable shift in the export markets towards eastern Europe.

One of the reasons for the leading international position of German suppliers lies in the extensive environmental legislation in this part of the world. German environmental laws, above all the Federal Emission Control Act (Bundes-Immissionsschutzgesetz) and the subsequent Technical Instructions on Air Quality (Technische Anleitung Luft) have been and still are driving technological innovations. Thanks to continuing advances in extraction technology, for example, fine-particle emissions from industrial processes in Germany have fallen since 1990 to less than a quarter of their original level. By exporting its environmental technology Germany is also transferring its environmental standards to other countries.

Energy-efficiency and the technology to achieve this is of special significance currently, not least because of rising energy prices. Demand is increasing, for example, for flue-gas systems with heat recovery, popular also because they enable faster amortisation of the investment costs.