Application
Microwave gas purification technology is most effectively applied to the service conditions of low temperature and non-steady state operations. The following is a list of areas where the microwave air purification technology performs the best and is the most economical and practical means to control the fugitive emission of air pollutants:
- Upgrading biogas produced from landfills, dairies, and wastewater treatment,
- Destroying odorous chemicals produced from agriculture processing,
- Spray painting and paint stripping operations,
- Metal plating, finishing and cleaning,
- Soils vapor extracting,
- Air stripping operations for ground water cleanup,
- Handling and storage of hazardous chemicals,
- Furniture painting and finishing,
- Odor controlling,
- Treating fume hood exhaust from university and national research laboratories,
- Diesel engine exhaust gas treatment,
- Treating toxic industrial gases,
- Supplying clean and safe breathing air to personnel in a shelter during chemical attacks,
- Decontaminating buildings contaminated with chemical and biological agents,
- Decontaminating air to prevent the spreading air-borne bacteria.
Advantages
The microwave air and gas purification process offers a number of advantages over other available conventional treatment technologies as summarized below:
- Provides the option of either recovering or destroying the solvents, ammonia, acids, and other hazardous air pollutants,
- Allows a continuous regeneration of GAC on site with a minimum loss, less energy, and no secondary pollutants such as NOx and dioxins,
- Eliminates any need for handling and disposing of recovered wastes,
- Significantly reduces the volume of air that needs to be treated,
- Allows for at least a 100-to-1 reduction in oxidation equipment scale,
- Eliminates the need for an acid gas wet scrubber,
- Provides a scrubber for the destruction of hypergolic fuel vapors that does not produce any liquid or solid toxic wastes and air pollutants,
- Provides the economic option to replace hypergolic wet scrubbers being used currently by the Air Force and NASA,
- Microwave-silicon carbide oxidation is immune to phosphorous and sulfur poisoning and very effective for the destruction of chemical warfare agents including aerosols in air,
- Provides the most promising air decontamination system that can supply clean breathing air for an indefinite period of time to a bunker or other facility in an environment that has been contaminated with chemical weapons.