LOW COST AIR EMISSIONS CONTROL SYSTEM FOR CUPOLA FURNACES Success story

V S S BHASKARA MURTY Director (Environment) AIP, National Pro !ctivit" #o!ncil Chennai
Background The Coimbatore Tiny and Small Foundry Owners Association has about 450 small scale cupola furnace foundry units are operating in and around Coimbatore These units are operating once a wee! to once in "5 days fre#uency between $%00 A& to 5%00 '& and producing cast iron components li!e pumps( motors( te)tile machines etc The uncontrolled air emissions from these units contain dust particles and sulfur dio)ide concentrations which are abo*e the emission standards prescribed by Tamilnadu 'ollution Control +oard ,T-'C+. The con*entional scrubber systems implemented by some of the units are not only e)pensi*e but also sensiti*e in operation and not complying with emission standards Air Emissions from Cupola -ational 'roducti*ity Council( Chennai has conducted a detailed in*estigation of the emissions from the cupola furnaces at Coimbatore The process gas #uantity is estimated as /000 -&/0hr to 4000 -&/0hr at temperature of /50 oC to 450 oC The furnace height Co!e abo*e the charge gate acts as an after burner and pro*ide space to burn the left o*er Carbon &ono)ide in the process gases with the air inta!e from charge gate contains about 12 to /2 sulfur and part of sulfur reacts with lime added in the raw material As a result about /00 3 400 mg0-&/ of sulfur dio)ide is in the process emissions The dust concentration in the process gases *ary from 400 mg0-&/ to $00 mg0-&/ out of which 502 dust particles are less than "0 microns

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Low Cost Wet Scrubber Dust Emission Control A low cost wet scrubber system has been designed and implemented by the units to control the dust emissions 6t is simple fabricate and install on3line with the process -o operator attention is necessary for scrubber operation A water spray wet scrubber is , Fig 3 ". The designed cocurrent to gas flow rate at the e)it of the cupola furnace

natural draft created ,/00 oC B 400 oC. by the cupola furnace is sufficient to draw the gases through the scrubber and there is no additional 6= fan is necessary A set of water spray noCCles scrub the dust laden gases Aowe*er to create additional draft to the cooled gases to discharge into atmosphere( an e)tended stac! of diameter " 0 ft and 4 ft high is installed at the e)it of the scrubber The scrubber water is collected in a sump to allow settling and separate the sludge and the clear water is re3circulated to the scrubber by "A' centrifugal pump 'eriodically the settled sludge is collected dried and disposed The water loss due to e*aporation and along with sludge is about 5 &/ for $ hours operation of cupola The operating cost is only the power consumption by the recirculating pump( which is about D "0 units per day The cost of the system is about 7s E0(00003 to 7s $0(00003 Performance Efficiency of the Wet Scrubber The performance efficiency of the scrubber was assessed by collecting the stac! emission dust samples from the sampling port pro*ided at the e)tended stac! The following are the emission monitoring results% S !o " 1 / Parameter Flow rate of gases( -&/0hr =ust emissions after the scrubber( mg0-&/ Sulfur dio)ide concentration( mg0-&/ Designed "alues /000 D "50 /00 3 400 #easured "alues 1(/00 4E D 50 Emission Standard by $!PCB 3 "50 3

Since the low cost scrubber performance is satisfactory( it has been appro*ed by Tamilnadu 'ollution Control +oard and other similar cupola furnaces in coimbatore are in progress of its implementation The ambient air #uality measurements around the units implemented the system has also found to be impro*ed