Meeting the new VOC regulations is affordable

Ever tightening EU regulations coming into effect this year for the removal of volatile organic chemicals, VOCs, are met with new catalytic incineration technology from Ehovoc

Ever tightening EU regulations coming into effect this year for the removal of volatile organic chemicals, VOCs, put heavy demand on companies.

While the traditional thermal regenerative incineration solutions struggle to meet these limits Ehovoc Oy has an affordable solution.

The Finnish specialist in innovative catalytic incineration technology has upgraded its compact, cost-effective incinerator so that it can outperform conventional competing designs on price and performance.

Increasingly stringent legislation has reduced emission limits in many countries to 20 mgC/Nm3, which cannot be achieved by current thermal technology without using more complex and more expensive incinerators.

This is a concern for companies in a wide range of industries including the chemical, pharmaceutical, paint and print sectors.

Also a number of countries now require the adoption of the "Best Available Technology" principle.

This means that companies will need to consider using the most effective and advanced VOC removal technology at the most economic cost.

"From our perspective at Ehovoc, this approach gives us a competitive advantage and our catalytic incineration design is, today, the best available technology," notes Reijo Lylykangas, Export Director at Ehovoc Oy.

With its upgraded 'Little Giant' catalytic incineration concept, Ehovoc can give companies the ability to remove VOCs while meeting the most stringent emission limits.

"Our technology is more compact, cheaper and less energy consuming, than thermal oxidation systems and combines this with low maintenance and life cycle costs plus a long operational life," says Reijo Lylykangas.

Proven customer benefits.

Several units based on the upgraded design have already been delivered to locations in Europe, so helping customers meet their environmental goals.

At one of the TRW Automotive production plants in Germany, a unit is treating VOC emissions.

According to the company, long and tight performance guarantee and low total cost were the heaviest arguments for the decision to purchase the technology.

TRW Automotive is one of the top ten companies globally in the automotive components business with more than 60,000 employees in 200 locations worldwide.

It has a very strong environmental policy and is committed to supporting local and international efforts in controlling emissions of all kinds.

Another customer is Elofin, part of the Norwegian packaging group Elopak.

Elofin specialises in cartons for liquid food products such as milk, yoghurt and juice and Little Giant is used in the flexo printing process.

Efficient design.

The Little Giant combines a novel catalytic system with an enhanced heat exchanger system which results in a highly efficient, yet compact design.

In addition, the operational temperature in this system is between 300-350C compared to 800-850C for conventional incinerators.

Normally a regenerative heat exchanger employs two heat storage elements or beds.

One is used to heat the incoming off-gas to the correct operating temperature while the second element recovers energy.

Conventional heat exchangers suffer a delay or emission slip during flow direction changes as part of the heat exchanger sequence, which reduces overall efficiency.

To overcome this deficiency in conventional systems, additional beds have been added.

However this adds cost and complexity without completely eliminating the emission slip.

In the Ehovoc heat exchanger, the heat exchange process i.e its heat transfer characteristics, has been improved and costs of operation reduced.

The new physical design for the catalytic converter has improved the effectiveness of the active surface by four times and this contributes to overall efficiency.

The catalytic converter uses precious metal catalyst, coupled with a specially designed geometric structure and specific surface area that is very tolerant to so called catalyst poisons such as phosphor, sulphur, calcium and zinc.

This adds up to a long active life and this means that Ehovoc is able to offer a 10 year warranty on the catalyst and heat exchanger though the expected life of a plant is expected to exceed 20 years.

Currently, the oldest big VOC incinerator based on the catalytic principle made by Ehovoc has been operating for 13 years without any problems.

Low operating costs.

The operating costs for the Little Giant are very low.

All energy, maintenance, compressed air supply etc add up to only 1 euro per hour for an incinerator with a capacity of 4000 m3/h with a VOC content of only 0.4 g/m3.

The standard version of the Little Giant has a throughput of up to 18000 Nm3/h and has been designed to fit into a freight container which makes it easy to transport to customer premises.

Installation is easy and quick requiring only connections to the gas pipe line, compressed air and electricity operation.

Should the production plant layout change, all that is required is to move the container to its new position.

Larger incinerators are supplied as modules.

All incinerators are fully automatic in operation and adjust according to the solvent concentration.

The overall control can be by computer or alternatively managed by a GSM-phone.

Ehovoc Oy was set up in 1998 and its main business activities are in incinerators based on its innovative catalytic technology for handling VOCs.

It is certified both to ISO 9001 and ISO 140001 quality and environmental standards.

Based at Oulu in Northern Finland the company is a privately owned company with part ownership by the Finnish venture company, Teknoventure.

Ehovoc has AAA banking rating and business and product liability insurance.

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