Looking for a fume scrubber?

For half a century Roperhurst has been designing, building, installing and servicing fume scrubbers across multiple industries for a wide range of applications.

What is a fume scrubber?

Fume scrubbers are essential for controlling air pollution and ensuring safe release of air into the environment by reducing concentrations of hazardous substances.

They work by introducing contaminated gas into a chamber where it interacts with a liquid scrubbing solution, often water, to absorb or neutralize harmful compounds. The process includes:

Absorption: Soluble gaseous components are transferred from the gas phase into the liquid phase.
Chemical Neutralization: Harmful substances react with the solution to form less hazardous compounds.
Particulate Removal: Fine aerosols and solid particles are captured through inertial impaction or centrifugal forces.

Packed Tower Wet Fume Scrubbers

Roperhurst’s packed tower wet scrubbers are an industrial air pollution control device that removes contaminants from a gas stream by passing the gas through a packing material while a scrubbing liquid flows down, creating a large surface area for gas-liquid contact and absorption of pollutants. The contaminated gas enters the bottom of the tower and flows upward through the packing, meeting the downward-flowing liquid, allowing pollutants to dissolve or react with the liquid before being discharged as a cleaner gas.

Components and Operation

Tower Shell: A vertical chamber housing the system
Packing Material: Specially shaped materials, such as rings or other structures, are layered within the tower to provide a very large surface area for efficient gas-liquid interaction.
Liquid Distributor: Sprays or weirs at the top of the tower evenly distribute the scrubbing liquid over the packing material.
Gas Inlet: The contaminated gas stream enters the tower, typically at the bottom.

Scrubbing Liquid: A chemical solution or water is used to absorb or react with the pollutants in the gas.
Liquid Film: As liquid flows down the packing, it forms a thin film that maximizes contact with the gas.
Gas-Liquid Contact: The polluted gas rises through the packing and comes into contact with the descending liquid film, transferring the contaminants from the gas to the liquid.
Moisture Eliminator: After the packed section, a moisture eliminator is used to remove any entrained liquid droplets from the exiting gas stream.
Re-circulation and Treatment: The spent scrubbing liquid, now containing the pollutants, is collected at the bottom and can be treated, reused, or disposed of.

Horizontal Flow Packed Bed Wet Scrubbers

Roperhurst’s horizontal flow wet scrubbers are an air pollution control device that uses a cross-flow design to remove pollutants from industrial gas streams. Contaminated gas flows horizontally through a packed bed, while scrubbing liquid flows downward through the packing, perpendicular to the gas.

Whilst there are many similarities with the way a packed tower scrubber works, this design provides prolonged contact between the gas and liquid, allowing for the absorption of pollutants before the cleaned, saturated gas exits after passing through mist eliminators.

Horizontal scrubbers are favoured for their compact, space-saving design, making them ideal for applications with limited headroom.

Dry Scrubbers

Roperhurst’s dry absorption scrubber is a pollution control device that uses dry sorbent materials to remove pollutants, such as acid gases and particulates, from an exhaust stream without using a liquid medium. It functions by injecting or exposing the dry sorbent to the gas, causing a chemical reaction that transforms harmful substances into solid particles, which are then captured by a particulate control device before being disposed of or recycled.

Unlike wet scrubbers, dry scrubbers do not generate stack steam plumes or wastewater.

Dry scrubbers, often called Odour Control Units (OCUs), are common place in the water industry used for absorbing odours from waste water treatment works.