Experimental investigation of optimum blend ratio of deodorant powder for removal of TVOCs from a foundry plant

Foundry is an important industrial process for making metal products in desired shapes especially for complex models that might not be economical to manufacture by other methods. However, the process also generates vast amounts and various types of air pollutants such as odor-causing volatile organic compounds (e.g., hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, etc.) and particulate matters. Therefore, development of technique that can efficiently eliminate these emissions released from the process is regarded as an essential research. For the purpose to simulate an existing pollution control system, in this study, a spray adsorption system was designed to work with a bag filter so as to remove total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) and dust particles simultaneously actually emitted from the de-molding process of a foundry plant. Maximization of process efficiency, by finding optimum blend ratio of deodorant powders selected i.e. activated carbon (AC) and zeolite (ZL), was the focus of this research. Seven mixing ratios of AC and ZL were tested in several conditions. Through the experiments, TVOCs removal efficiency of more than 95% for all conditions was obtained from the adsorbent that composed of 80% AC (800 mesh) and 20% ZL (300 mesh) by mass.