Fumes and Smells

Fumes and odours are air-suspended pollutants.

This type of atmospheric pollutant is found in the mechanical and engineering industries, where processes such as:

– turning, milling, grinding, drawing, drilling, boring, cutting, shearing, threading cause the evaporation of the liquid coolants. In fact during the extrusion and metal removal, the tool or the cutter goes into contact with the piece to be worked; friction overheats them considerably, producing fumes and aerosols because of the evaporation/burning of these residues.
– Plunge electroerosion
– Cold/hot forming of metal processes, for example extrusion. 
– Cutting, incision and laser marking 
– Particularly hot working processes such as thermoforming, sublimation printing, welding. 
– The chemical composition of particular substances easily leads to evaporation.

A striking example is the thermal treatment of induction hardening treatments.
Among the heat treatments of steel or cast iron, particularly significant is induction hardening, used to increase the surface hardness of mechanical parts that are subject to important wear. With induction hardening their resistance and fatigue limit are greatly improved allowing a substantial lengthening of their life cycle.

The main causes, however, can be traced back to a summary of factors such as evaporation/combustion of coolants and metal worked, with the consequent formation of fumes and odours.

The problem of exhalations, fumes and smells if they are not held

The volatility of polluting particles such as industrial fumes, exhalations and odours causes and creates various problems for companies, operators and machine tools.

First, in addition to the healthy air, they negatively affect the sanitary conditions of the operators, especially at the respiratory level, since particles smaller than 0.3 microns can reach the pulmonary alveoli, compromising the airways. Not only that, in contact with the epidermis, they create skin irritations, dermatitis and redness. 

From a purely productive point of view, pollution in the workshop from micro-dusts and foil mists considerably reduces the productivity of the workshop and in particular the efficiency of machine tools, since the stratification of pollutants affects the precision and tolerance of measuring instruments, with the onerous consequence of having to increase maintenance on the most delicate components.

Dust, oil mists and aerosols, if unfiltered and purified, make the floor slippery, soil the surfaces of the machine tools and the walls of the shed, on which they settle.

The best system for reducing fumes and odours is a carbon active filter aided by very high-efficiency prefiltration stage of HEPA H13/14.

Active carbon filters use air purification technology where pollutants such as SOV and COV pass through a filter stage that contains active carbon.

Thanks to its porosity,  absorbs and retains most organic substances and for this reason it is used in all industrial purifier systems for abatement of solvents and odours ifor a lot of sectors and applications.

In many cases the pollutant must be pre-filtered with a mechanical filtration and then treated with the active carbon cell, in order to increase its duration over time.