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Original Date: 03/08/1999
Revision Date: 01/18/2007
Information : Barstow Air Treatment Performance Study
To meet environmental regulations, facilities with paint booth operations must treat their air emissions to remove harmful organics (e.g., VOCs, hazardous air pollutants [HAPs]). The Marine Corps Maintenance Center in Barstow, California uses a large paint booth operation which produces 45,000-cubic feet per minute (CFM) of emissions. The Center employs a vendor-supplied Air Pollution Control System (APCS) that combines ozone, ultraviolet (UV) light, and carbon filters to treat the emissions. However, the Marine Corps wanted to determine the overall volatile organic compound (VOC) removal performance and regeneration efficiency of its system, and verify the scalability of system upgrades and improvements. The Center approached the Applied Research Laboratory at the Pennsylvania State University (ARL Penn State) because of its experience in testing air pollution control technologies using ozone, ultaviolet light, and carbon absorption to destroy organics.
The ARL Penn State set up a 2,500-CFM, pilot-scale treatment unit at its laboratory to test the ability of scaling up the results to the Barstow system. Similarities between the pilot-scale treatment unit and the Barstow system include:
A gas phase photolytic reactor that uses ultaviolet light and ozone filters to initiate photolytic, photocatalytic, and free radical reactions to oxidize contaminates;
An aqua reactor consisting of a counter-flow packed bed scrubber, a mist air dispersion unit, and an oxidizing water treatment tank to absorb and oxidize contaminates; and
A granular activated charcoal (GAC) unit which absorbs contaminates.
The ARL Penn State discovered that the regeneration of the GAC became non-functional over time. This conclusion severely reduced the treatment efficiency of the APCS. The laboratory projected that scaling the findings to the full- scale APCS in the Barstow system would have the same result. To verify the prediction, the ARL Penn State tested the Center’s APCS, and reported a similar degraded performance over time. Under sustained operations, the GAC was not regenerating properly. The Marine Corps Maintenance Center is reviewing methods to retrofit the APCS. A new Military Constructrion for painting operations and emissions control is being completed.
For more information see the
Point of Contact for this survey.
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