Organic coating calls for control of VOC emissions
15 Jan 2000
When Ricoh UK installed a new organic photo conductor (OPC) coating process at its Telford plant it had to install some form of emission control to comply with the Environmental Protection Act and Ricoh's own internal environmental policy.
Added to this was the actual nature of the OPC process. This would result in an intermittent emission load with a flow rate of 8000Nm3/h containing a mixture of methyl ethyl ketone (MEK), isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and cyclohexanone. Faced with these internal and external constraints, Ricoh opted for a new Honeycat system supplied by AirProtekt of Newton Cambridge. The plant can handle 8000Nm3/h with a solvent loading of 1029kg/h.
The environmentally harmful VOC exhaust gases from the coating process are catalytically converted under controlled temperature conditions to produce carbon dioxide and water vapour. These are then cooled in an air-to-air heat exchanger, with the fluctuating air flow being handled by a variable speed main fan.
