ABSTRACT
Current aspects like energy and cleaning efficiencies, national and international political efforts towards sustainability and climate protection, price increases and shortages of energy sources and raw materials as well as social acceptance require transformation of existing end-of-pipe waste air purification processes into integrated treatment processes with the aim of implementing air-reuse concepts. The required technologies, however, primarily depend on the type and concentration of the waste air compounds. In the case of waste air heavily contaminated with VOCs, air reuse is possible by means of an integrated process combination of biological treatment and oxidative post-treatment (UV oxidation/non-thermal plasma) since this enables disinfection of the waste air in addition to VOC removal. In the case of low-polluted waste air as collected from the fabrication hall or building ventilation, the process is reduced to the oxidative processes, which can be integrated as a retrofit set in centralized/decentralized air-conditioning systems. From an economic point of view, these concepts become more interesting the more requirements are made and thus the higher the production costs of process air are (e.g., in clean room applications). The aim of this chapter is to provide a brief outline of the treatment mechanism of industrial gas effluent by advanced technologies.
