Reducing Emissions from Industrial Processes by Effective Particulate Monitoring.

Reducing particulate emissions from industrial processes is a common goal for industrial plant
operators across the industrialised world. A significant and growing number of industrial
organisations understand that continuous monitoring plays an increasing role in reducing emissions
since it provides the feedback to ensure dust arrestment plant continue to operate to optimum
performance while reducing operating costs.
In general dust arrestment plant is installed after industrial emission sources to reduce levels. While
particulate may be controlled by Electrostatic Precipitators, Cyclones, Scrubbers and Filters, the trend
is to install Filter Type arrestment plant since they have higher collection efficiency, create no waste
water and can be designed to operate even at elevated temperatures. Particulate monitors are fitted
after the arrestment plant to detect and monitor for malfunction or sub-optimal performance of the
filter system, which will otherwise undetected lead to increased particulate levels.
Particulate monitors can be used to pre-warn of imminent problems in filter systems by monitoring
the dynamics of dust during the automatic cleaning cycle of a bagfilter. High peaks in dust are
associated with the cleaning of a bag row with a failing filter bag and therefore by synchronising the
instrument to the cleaning control system, maintenance personnel can easily determine which bag
row requires maintenance before a major incident occurs.
In addition, with large multi-compartment bagfilters, multi-probe dust monitoring systems can be
used to detect and isolate the compartment causing elevated emissions which again allows
emissions to be controlled.
It is now widely understood that increased particulate levels have a direct impact on human health
problems and global pollution. The health problem is particularly apparent with small particles,
which are absorbed by the human lung and particles with high carbon and metals content. Therefore
Environmental Regulators worldwide stipulate emission limits for particulates. In addition many
regulators require continuous particulate monitors to be fitted to industrial processes for the same
two reasons:
• To enforce particulate emission limits in mg/m3 and kg/year.
• To provide feedback that pollution abatement equipment is working correctly.
The overall trend is that continuous particulate measurement is required in both the large stacks and
those with environmentally sensitive emissions. Other types of continuous particulate monitoring
such as qualitative and filter failure detection can be required in smaller processes.
Particulate emission monitoring is a challenging technical field ,not only because of the application
specific accuracy and performance of these monitors, but also due to the harsh environments in
which they must continuously operate. To meet these challenges, Group Instrumentation have a
comprehensive range of monitoring solutions to meet the broad needs of particulate emitting
industries and the requirements of national regulations.
Applications generally fall within the following four categories:-
Particulate Measurement Systems
These systems provide continuous measurement of particulate emission concentrations which, for a
defined range of application conditions, have the accuracy and consistency of response to be reliably
calibrated against isokinetic gravimetric test samples (Standard Reference Method, SRM).