Introduction and technology selection criteria

Environmental sustainability issues are gaining increasing attention from all stakeholders. Even though global warming and air quality are the most hotly debated issues, a new type of strictly local scale pollution is growing in interest, the environmental odor impact. The presence of recurrent odor event may cause annoyance in citizens, and recurrent annoyance may lead to nuisance. The reason for these olfactory events is often connected to the presence of industrial plants near residential areas and their emissions into the atmosphere. In order to prevent cases of odor nuisance, which may lead to public complaints and even the closure of an industry, different countries around the world are regulating these issues and methods for estimating and reducing odor impact. The aim of this book is to provide information about the possible technologies, their choice and their sizing, useful to know and reduce odorous emissions. Prior to choose the proper abatement system, it is important to know the characteristics of the gas flow to be treated, in terms of composition and temporal variability: this will be discussed in Chapters “Characterization of the odorous fluxes” by Polvara et al. and “Continuous instrumental odor emission monitoring” by Bax and Capelli respectively. The most widespread technologies for odorants abatement are wet scrubbing, biological treatments, activated carbon adsorption and thermal oxidation. All of these technologies are presented in the present book. Each technology has its own advantages and shortcomings: in the final part of the present chapter a first-attempt selection criterion is illustrated.