Abstract
In this study, the control efficiency of odorous compounds was measured from diverse control process units of 14 individual companies located within the Ban-Wall industrial complex of Ansan city, Korea (January to July 2005), To quantify the control efficiency levels of major odorous compounds, we collected odor samples from both the front and rear side of 17 control process units ($N=17{\times}2=34$). If the control efficiency is compared for each of 32 compounds between different process units, wet scrubber (WS) was found to be the most effective unit in terms of the sum of pollutants showing the positive control signals. Although the WS system shows generally a good control pattern for VOC, it is not the case for most index odorous pollutants; only 3 out of 12 index compounds were found to show positive control efficiencies. The results of the study also indicated that the control efficiency differ greatly between different industrial sectors and/or control process types. In the case of leather industry, carbonyl compounds were found to exhibit the highest control efficiency with its values varying from 19 to 90%. On the other hand, in the case of metal production sector, VOC recorded the maximum control efficiency with values varying from 18 to 79%. According to this study, most air pollution control facilities operated in most companies show fairly poor control efficiencies for most malodor compounds. Hence, to obtain best control efficiency of odorous pollutant emission, acquisition of better information on source characteristics and establishment of effective control technologies are highly demanding.
