New catalytic filter technology can provide flexibility in controlling harmful emissions from industrial facilities, Kevin Moss, business development director for Tri-Mer, writes in an article for Pollution Engineering.
Catalytic embedded ceramic filters can remove nitrogen oxide at lower temperatures, while also removing particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen chloride emissions at such facilities including coal power plants, cement manufacturing facilities and incinerators.
The filter can help meet regulatory guidelines including boiler Maximum Achievable Control Technology for coal plants, National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants as well as a host of other regulations on practices such as glass furnaces and ceramics manufacturing.
As such standards proliferate and become more stringent, the advantage offered by filters is that they are a “powerful straightforward approach” compared to a long string of individual piece of equipment, Moss writes.
While traditional low-density ceramic filters have been used to remove particulate matter and acid gases since the 1980s, the ability to reduce nitrogen oxide and dioxins and only became available in 2005 when the idea of embedding filter walls with micronized catalyst became possible, the article says.
Two types are currently available from Tri-Mer: the Standard UltraTemp filters, which can remove particulate matter and acid gases and metals including mercury, and UltraCat filters, which remove the same chemical as UltraTemp filters while also destroying dioxins and nitrogen oxide, the article says.
Ceramic filters have been used by the US military at munitions destruction facilities for 13 years. Furthermore the use of such filters in Japan and Europe is widespread. Since 2009, adoption has been rapid in a number of US industries, writes Moss.
In July, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines announced plans to install a selective catalytic reduction system on all three power generators of an MOL-operated oceangoing freighter for a demonstration test to ensure compliance with nitrogen oxides emissions rules.
MOL, Yanmar and Namura Shipbuilding jointly developed the SCR system. This test aimed to demonstrate NOx denitration under the actual operation of the freighter to meet the Tier III NOx regulations set by the International Maritime Organization.
