Study of Venturi Scrubber Efficiency For Pesticide Industry

A venturi scrubber is designed to effectively use the energy from the inlet gas stream to atomize the liquid being used to scrub the gas stream. This type of technology is a part of the group of air pollution controls. The air pollution generated from the industry is now become serious problem for the environment, which affect the living and non living thing on the Earth. Among all the air pollution monitoring equipment venturi scrubber found to suitable for prevention of air pollution by pesticide. It was found that scrubber shows 99.1 % efficiency.


INTRODUCTION
Air pollution is one of the most important agents that can affect human health as well as the environment, plants, and animals. Three million deaths from air pollution had been reported annually, making it one of the seven greatest hazards for the world [1]. Humans did not significantly affect the environment until relatively recent times. This is due to human population increasing for only a small part of recorded history, and the bulk of human-made produced air pollution is intimately related to industrialization [2]. With rapidly expanding industry, ever more urbanized lifestyles, and an increasing population, concern over the control of man-made air pollutants is now clearly a necessity [3]. In all the industry pesticides industry is one of the toxic releaser industry and also responsible for environmental pollution.
In general, process emissions can be classified into channelised and fugitive emissions. The channelised emission is a point source emission from process operations and the fugitive emission is an uncontrolled emission from storage tanks/drums, spils, leaks, overflows etc. In order to identify the various sources of process emissions and their control systems in pesticide industries a questionnaire survey and in-depth study of some pesticide industries were conducted [5][6][7]. The manufacturing process for a product is a combination of various unit operations and unit process. The material balance of the reactants and products gives the characteristics and quantity of emissions. However, their quantity is constrained by the efficiency of conversion of the system. Chances of pure process emissions of only one gaseous pollutant are very less. The process emissions are contaminated by other vapours of raw materials, solvents and also sometimes product of the unit operations [8]. Theoretical emission of pollutants is difficult to compute. Very often during the unit operations wastewater and solid waste are separated, where as waste gas is directly released from the reactions itself. It is observed that no process or production site is directly comparable to another. From the various pesticide manufacturing units, different identified pollutants associated with products are mention in Table 1. In literature so many method are available for the pollution monitoring for the pesticide industry like, separation techniques, gas solid separation, liquid-liquid separation, gas liquid separation, conversation to harmless end product and thermal destruction. In case of gas solid separation technique cyclone separator, multiclone, electrostatic precipitator, wet dust scrubber and fabric filter including ceramic filter pollution monitoring equipment are used [9]. Among all techniques gas solid separator and the equipment venturi scrubber is the best one. The venturi scrubber is a device which uses liquid in the form of droplets to efficiently remove fine particulate matter from gaseous streams. In the scrubber the gas scrubber accelerates the scrubber liquid, together with the air or gas exhaust stream, to high velocities ILNS Volume 9 and turbulence. This happens in the bottleneck of the venturi. Behind this bottleneck, the pressure drops, reducing flow velocity back to normal. At this point, contaminant particles are collected and removed [10]. Venturis are the most commonly used scrubber for particle collection and are capable of achieving the highest particle collection efficiency of any wet scrubbing system. As the inlet stream enters the throat, its velocity increases greatly, atomizing and turbulently mixing with any liquid present. The atomized liquid provides an enormous number of tiny droplets for the dust particles to impact on. These liquid droplets incorporating the particles must be removed from the scrubber outlet stream, generally by cyclonic separators [11][12][13]. Particle removal efficiency increases with increasing pressure drop because of increased turbulence due to high gas velocity in the throat. Venturis can be operated with pressure drops ranging from 12 to 250 cm (5 to 100 in) of water. Presently pesticide industry using mechanically aided scrubber, it shows very poor efficiency is low. By this study suggested using venturi scrubber instead of mechanically aided scrubber. The aim of study is to calculate the efficiency of venturi scrubber in the monitoring of pollutant generated by pesticide.

1. Material
The sample was collection from the pesticide industry. The plant for the manufacture of Agrochemicals is located in nearby Ahmedabad City. It manufacture TGP (Technical Grade Pesticides) which include synthetic pyrethroids such as Cypermethrin, Permethrin and Alpha Cypermethrin and organic phosphorous compounds such as Acephate as well as new Technical Grade Pesticides such as Imidacloprid and Triazophos, Formulations and Pesticides Intermediates such as MPB and CMAC.

Experimental setup
A venturi scrubber is used for the process of reducing air pollution in pesticides industry is shown in Figure 1. Equipment was designed for 3000 Kg/h scrub the gas stream for effectively use of the energy from the inlet gas stream to atomize the liquid being used. Basically it was made of MS, SS304, SS316, Polypropylene, PVDF, FRB, and Graphite [14]. The Caustic Soda, Potash, water, lime is used as motive fluid used in scrubber [15]. A venturi scrubber consists of three sections: a converging section, a throat section, and a diverging section. The inlet gas stream enters the converging section and, as the area decreases, gas velocity increases (in accordance with the Bernoulli equation). Liquid is introduced either at the throat or at the entrance to the converging section.
The inlet gas, forced to move at extremely high velocities in the small throat section, shears the liquid from its walls, producing an enormous number of very tiny droplets. Particle and gas removal occur in the throat section as the inlet gas stream mixes with the fog of tiny liquid droplets. The inlet stream then exits through the diverging section, where it is forced to slow down. Venturi can be used to collect both particulate and gaseous pollutants, but they are more effective in removing particles than gaseous pollutants [16].
International Letters of Natural Sciences Vol. 9 To accomplish this removal it is necessary to mix the "dirty" gas with fine droplets of the fluid used to remove them. A Venturi accomplishes this by passing the washing fluid through a tapered neck in the Venturi nozzle introducing the gas and liquid into the system. The high speed gas breaks the fluid into tiny droplets and mixes them with itself [17]. The fluid picks up the impurities and coalesces into larger droplets which either fall out of the gas or are collected on impingement plates or packing. The purified gas leaves the system; the dirty fluid is sent for disposal or purified for reuse.

3. 1. Air Flow
Typical gas flow rates for a single-throat venturi scrubber unit are 0.2 to 28 standard cubic meters per second (sm 3 /sec) (500 to 60,000 standard cubic feet per minute (scfm)). Flows higher then this range use either multiple venturi scrubbers in parallel or a multiple throated venturi.

3. Temperature
Inlet gas temperatures are usually in the range of 4 to 370 °C (40 to 700 F) .

R E T R
ILNS Volume 9

3. 4. Other Considerations
In situations where waste gas contains both particulates and gases to be controlled, venturi scrubbers are sometimes used as a pretreatment device, removing PM to prevent clogging of a downstream device, such as a packed bed scrubber, which is designed to collect primarily gaseous pollutants.

4. Method
Generally different models are available for the calculation of Venturi particle collection efficiency. Johnstone equation, Infinite throat mode, Cut power method, Contact power theory, Pressure drop.

4. 1. Johnstone' method
One of the more popular and widely used collection efficiency equations is that originally suggested by Johnstone et al (1954) [10].
where η is the collection efficiency, K p is the inertial impaction parameter (dimensionless), R the liquid-to-gas ratio (gal/1000 acf or gpm/1000 acfm) and k the correlation coefficient, the value of which depends on the system geometry and operating conditions (typically 0.1-0.2 acf/gal). The inertial impaction parameter (K p ) is given by Equation 2, where d p the particle diameter (ft), ρ p the particle density (lb/ft 3 ), V t the throat velocity (ft/s), μ G the gas viscosity (lb/ft-s), d d the mean droplet diameter (ft) and C the Cunningham correction factor (dimensionless).
The mean droplet diameter (d d ) for standard air and water in a venturi scrubber is given by the Nukiyama-Tanasawa relationship, shown in Equation 3. The overall collection efficiency of the system can be calculated using Equation 4, where M d is the weight percent of the particles of a given diameter. 2 where ΔP the pressure drops (dyne/cm 2 ), and Χ the dimensionless throat length, which can be calculated by Equation 11 (where l t the venturi throat length, in cm). The drag coefficient, C D for droplets with Reynolds numbers, Re, from 10 to 500 can be obtained by Equation 6 [9]. The Reynolds number can be calculated using Equation 7 (where ρ G the gas density, in g/cm 3 ).

5. Operating Parameters
The venturi scrubber runs with two different pollutants existing on the plant. When gaseous or the particle the pressure drops, liquid to gas ratio, liquid inlet pressure and removal efficiency are mention in Table 2.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION
To determine the efficiency of venturi scrubber it was decided to calculate with Johnstone equation. This type of technology is a part of the group of air pollution controls collectively referred to as wet scrubbers. Venturi devices have also been used for over 100 years to measure fluid flow (Venturi tubes derived their name from Giovanni Battista Venturi, an Italian physicist). About 35 years ago, Johnstone (1949) [10] and other researchers found that they could effectively use the venturi configuration to remove particles from gas streams. The following operating characteristic of venturi scrubber was mention below.

Initial Condition
1) Mass-media particle size (physical) dps = 9.0 µm 2) Geometric standard deviation σgm = 2. Step 1. Calculate the Cunningham slip correction factor. The mass median particle size (physical) dps is 9.0 µm. Because the particle aerodynamic geometric mean diameter dpg is not known, we must use Step 7. The geometric standard deviation σgm is 2.5.
The overall penetration Pt x is 0.008.
Step 8. The collection efficiency can be calculated using the equation:

2. Cost estimation
The following are cost ranges for venturi wet scrubbers of conventional design under typical operating conditions, developed using EPA cost estimating spread sheets and referenced to the volumetric flow rate of the waste stream treated. For purposes of calculating the example cost effectiveness, the pollutant is assumed to be PM at an inlet loading of approximately 7 g/sm 3 (3 gr/scf). The costs do not include costs for post-treatment or disposal of used solvent or waste [19]. Actual costs can be substantially higher than in the ranges shown for applications which require expensive materials, solvents, or treatment methods.

CONCLUSIONS
Venturi scrubbers are primarily used to control particulate matter (PM), including PM less than or equal to 10 micrometers (μm) in aerodynamic diameter (PM), and PM less than or equal 10 to 2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM). Venturi scrubbers PM collection efficiencies range from 70 to greater than 99.9 percent, depending upon the application. approximately 0.5 to 5 μm. Some venturi scrubbers are designed with an adjustable throat to control the velocity of the gas stream and the pressure drop. Increasing the venturi scrubber efficiency requires increasing the pressure drop which, in turn, increases the energy consumption. For PM applications, wet scrubbers generate waste in the form of a slurry or wet sludge. This creates the need for both wastewater treatment and solid waste disposal. Initially, the slurry is treated to separate the solid waste from the water. The treated water can then be reused o discharged. Once the water is removed, the remaining waste will be in the form of a solid or sludge. If the solid waste is inert and nontoxic, it can generally be landfilled. Hazardous wastes will have more stringent procedures for disposal. In some cases, the solid waste may have value and can be sold or recycled.