Tips for reducing toxic emissions in industrial plants

Reducing toxic emissions in industrial plants is crucial for protecting both the environment and public health

By Elizabeth Whelan October 23, 2024
Figure 2: Motor control centers at an industrial plant, where regular maintenance and optimization help reduce energy consumption and minimize toxic emissions.

 

Learning Objectives

  • Understand the impact of industrial emissions on the environment and public health.
  • Identify and evaluate strategies for minimizing toxic emissions in industrial settings.
  • Apply knowledge of regulations and best practices to ensure compliance in industrial environments.

Toxic emissions insights

  • Let’s explore some innovative strategies and technologies for minimizing harmful toxic emissions, including adopting cleaner production methods, deploying advanced filtration and scrubber systems and ensuring you’ve scheduled ongoing maintenance to boost the performance of equipment.

  • Understand how to assess various methods, including cleaner production practices, advanced filtration systems and regular equipment maintenance, to effectively reduce harmful emissions from industrial operations.

  • This article explores innovative strategies such as adopting cleaner production methods, implementing advanced filtration systems and maintaining equipment to minimize harmful emissions, while ensuring compliance with regulations and industry best practices.

 


Companies that own, manage and operate industrial plants have a responsibility to avoid polluting the environment with toxic emissions. They must safeguard employees and visitors, as well as protect the surrounding community so everyone can enjoy clean air and water.

Consider that industrial sources account for about 23% of greenhouse gas emissions in America — according to a respected thought leader on climate change — such as from their chemical processes in production cycles and emissions from combusting fossil fuels.

When addressing today’s challenge of dealing with toxic emissions, industrial-scale enterprises turn to modern solutions.

Adopt cleaner production methods

Tour your facilities with an eye toward integrating cleaner production methods and hire a third-party consultant if your staff lacks expertise in this area.

Figure 1: Cooling towers at an industrial facility, where innovative technologies are employed to minimize toxic emissions and protect the surrounding environment. Courtesy: Current Midwest

Figure 1: Cooling towers at an industrial facility, where innovative technologies are employed to minimize toxic emissions and protect the surrounding environment. Courtesy: Current Midwest

You’ll discover that addressing energy usage can make a big difference in curbing toxic emissions. For example, take steps to make your plant operate more efficiently and use renewable energy sources. This may involve upgrading equipment if maintenance is insufficient by itself to boost efficiency.

Changing your source of energy will also help you meet your goal to achieve cleaner production.

Your facilities manager will want to investigate phasing out the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), typically employed in foam blowing, air conditioning and refrigeration, while moving to find greener substitutes.

You have a motivation to switch to cleaner approaches sooner rather than later since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under a mandate from the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020, must begin phasing down HFCs by 85% over 15 years to make a transition to next-generation technology, as noted by a respected convener on climate change.

Remember that “going green” by adjusting industrial processes is good for burnishing your public image and attracting new employees who want to work at a company that does its part to protect the environment from toxic emissions.

Implement filtration and scrubber systems to reduce toxic emissions

The most dangerous air pollutants are volatile organic compounds (VOCs), hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) and solid particulate matter (PM), according to an industry report.

VOCs come from a range of industrial operations, with major sources including adhesive and paint production. Cancer, nervous system disorders, autoimmune diseases and respiratory illness can stem from HAPs in the air. PM pollutants such as smoke and debris are also hazardous for people and may come from synthetic compounds or organic residue.

In addition to reducing usage of materials that give way to VOCs, HAPs and PM, you’ll want to install advanced filters and scrubbers in a facility to keep harmful emissions from escaping your property and damaging the environment.

Another approach is to destroy the pollutants before they can make their way into the air. For example, regenerative thermal oxidizers eliminate pollutants under high temperature. They convert hazardous emissions into water and carbon dioxide before exhausting gases outside.

Figure 2: Motor control centers at an industrial plant, where regular maintenance and optimization help reduce energy consumption and minimize toxic emissions. Courtesy: Current Midwest

Figure 2: Motor control centers at an industrial plant, where regular maintenance and optimization help reduce energy consumption and minimize toxic emissions. Courtesy: Current Midwest

A variant, known as a recuperative thermal oxidizer, uses steel heat exchangers to create extremely hot conditions to break down VOCs so they don’t get into the atmosphere.

These oxidizers use catalytic oxidizers, which combine high heat and chemical catalysts to reduce pollution into innocuous compounds that pose no threat to the environment.

Regularly maintain equipment to ensure optimal performance

It’s important to regularly schedule maintenance of all systems and to assess and upgrade obsolete equipment when necessary, including industrial electrical equipment. Doing so can help extend the useful working life of equipment, bringing down the total cost of ownership.

With maintenance, components will work properly and efficiently. During the normal course of maintenance, your team should be on the lookout for waste and grease accumulating near the electrical equipment because of the potential fire hazard, which would release clouds of toxic smoke into the environment.

You may prefer to hire an outside service to take care of maintaining the pollution control equipment, but it’s prudent to also train onsite employees in operating and cleaning the machinery. This enables them to do maintenance more often and take care of problems with equipment that might arise between scheduled outsourced maintenance services.

As noted by the climate convener noted above, industry accounts for about 25% of the total electricity sales in the United States, which indirectly contributes to the rise in toxic emissions at power generation facilities. So, when you optimize your industrial equipment to run more efficiently thanks to ongoing maintenance, you are doing your part to reduce the amount of indirectly produced toxic emissions.

Training best practices to reduce toxic emissions

Members of the team need to be aware of their duties to stay in compliance with government regulations at the state and federal levels. They should also be trained in current industry best practices through your onboarding process or by periodically bringing in consultants for updated guidelines. You avoid sanctions, preserve your reputation in the industry and reduce the chances of producing toxic emissions.

Accordingly, you’ll want to install sensors to continuously monitor your equipment. With data analysis from these monitoring systems, you can spot pollution sources and track the progress of how well you are curbing harmful emissions.

To do your part to reduce toxic emissions, it’s best to focus on three key areas: establish cleaner production methods, deploy advanced filtration and scrubbing equipment and maintain your equipment according to the manufacturer’s recommended schedule. This helps you remain a good corporate citizen, demonstrating your commitment to protecting the environment.


Author Bio: Elizabeth Whelan is Marketing Manager at Current Midwest.