As federal and state environmental regulators continue to tighten limits on volatile organic compound (VOC) and organic hazardous air pollution (o-HAP) emissions, industrial manufacturers are feeling the pressure. Even small-to-medium sized companies, for whom VOC abatement was not required in the past, are now becoming targets for emissions reduction. In some cases, the new regulations are forcing organizations to turn businesses away due to emission capacity limits.

An unwillingness to comply is not the issue. Reducing the serious environmental and health risks associated with VOC and o-HAP emissions are goals of most companies. However, conventional pollution abatement uses thermal oxidation and this use presents numerous challenges. Thermal oxidizers, which burn compounds at extremely high temperatures, are extremely large as well as expensive and complicated to install and maintain. Small-to-medium size companies generally cannot afford the initial capital and operating costs that can exceed $100/hour for every 10,000 cfm of air processed.

With future prices of natural gas uncertain and increased market pressures to find more environmentally safe approaches that reduce our national dependence on fossil fuels, businesses need to find new, more efficient methods for pollution abatement.

Advanced Electron Beams offers an alternative technology, employing the power of electron beams to directly destroy VOCs and oHAPs. The AEB Emitter directly breaks apart the organic molecules, allowing them to react with the ozone that is co-generated from the pollution air-stream and creating clean byproducts in the form of carbon dioxide and water. Moreover, Advanced Electron Beams delivers electron beams in a form factor and at a price point that make it practical for industrial manufacturers of all sizes to incorporate into their processes today. Key advantages of the AEB approach include:

• High efficiency: Because the energy of the electron beam is directly applied to the air stream without loss to the air handling infrastructure, the process is far more efficient than thermal oxidation approaches.
• Scalability: By adding more electron beam modules to the pollution process, AEB can scale to meet the requirements for higher pollution loadings and air flow rates.
• Low operating cost: A pair of AEB emitters, delivering their maximum power, costs less than $1 per hour to operate in most markets.
• Easy maintenance: AEB emitters consist of modular components that can be easily replaced by the customer's in-house maintenance staff. AEB provides complete system training to all customers, minimizing the need for external contractors to perform service work.
• High Uptime: AEB emitter system components can be swapped in less than 60 minutes in most pollution abatement system configurations. And, because AEB emitters require less than one minute of warm-up time, processes can be up and running again in under one hour.

• Composite materials manufacturing: Abates emissions from key materials, such as styrene and related compounds, that are now under tight environmental control.
• Wood and metal coating: Abates VOCs, such as Stoddard Solvent and Mineral Spirits, that are critical to these processes but can be very expensive to abate using conventional methods.
• Adhesives manufacturing: Abates many important alcohols, ethers and acetates, which continue to be tightly controlled by environmental agencies.