Sustainable Technologies for Pollution Control (STPC)

The mission of the Sustainable Technologies for Pollution Control (STPC) research group is to push forward the state of the art of conventional chemical technologies to reduce the environmental footprint of industrial processes in a sustainable way. Sustainability is not only considered as a way to improve the quality of the environment, but also as a mandatory way to make the new technology acceptable for industrial stakeholders: more effective, less expensive and a with better life cycle assessment. This is pursued through the development of innovative processes and design of dedicated equipment to clean effluents of process industries, power plants and internal combustion engines. The STPC-Lab is also focused on developing cleaner physico-chemical processes that reduce the requirements of hazardous chemicals, minimize emission footprints and, whenever possible, recover valuable by-products.

The STPC-Lab has six main research lines:

  • Exhaust gas treatments and biogas/syngas purification - Technologies for single-component or combined NOx, SOx, Hg, CO2, H2S and fine and ultrafine particle removal are the primary research topics. Experiments and modelling are focused on the use of chemical absorption with oxidizing water solutions, wet electrostatic scrubbing and adsorption processes. Dedicated studies on chemo-electro-hydrodynamics (CEHD) of electrified water jets are integral part of the research studies. New research lines deal with on the use of non-thermal plasma technologies for the removal of SOx and NOx compounds from gaseous effluents. The research activities are focused on both exhaust gas treatment and purification and upgrade of biogas and syngas streams. One key topic of this research line is the development of technologies for the treatment of exhaust gases of marine engines. This includes the application of wet electrostatic scrubbing for the removal of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and diesel soot particles (size from 10 to 500 nm), with integrated washwater treatment and energy recovery systems. The research include design, operation and demonstration in representative environment of prototypes with scale up to 15000 Nm3/h. The same units can be applied to other heavy duty diesel engines as that of diesel train.
  • Energy recovery - This topic covers the development of new techniques to recovery waste heat for exhaust gases based on fluidization technology. The research activity includes experimental and modelling studies on heat transfer rates and selection of optimal solid particles, included the use of adsorbing particles to reduce gas dew point so to allow an enhancement of heat recovery.
  • Indoor air cleaning - This research topic aims to develop wet electrostatic scrubbing unit for indoor air cleaning. The exposure risk correlated to anthropogenic and natural aerosols has been expanding since the last thirty years due to the increased fraction of world population living in densely inhabited areas. Apart from the role of toxic mineral aerosols generated by industrial processes and transportation, another important health concern for densely populated areas is the higher frequency of exposure to infectious bioaerosols, containing bacteria and viruses. Specific constraints can be imposed to anthropogenic aerosols emissions by introducing regulations to limit quantities and concentrations at the point of emission, but there is no way to reduce the concentration of bioaerosol other than filtering the air intake entering indoor environments (buildings or vehicles) or using personal devices in open spaces. With their ability to capture particles as fine as 10 nm with efficiencies up to 99% and the possible use of biocidal solution, wet electrostatic scrubbing may be a valuable option to clean indoor air from bioaerosols. 
  • Water cleaning - The remediation of natural waters and the depuration of civil or industrial wastewater find critical problems in the removal of organic or inorganic micropollutants, as PAH, PCBs or heavy metals. The focus area of this topic is the development of advanced adsorption processes using carbon based sorbents (activated carbons, nanoparticles…), ionic exchange resins, waste derived and natural materials. The group developed advanced skills to characterize equilibrium and dynamic properties of adsorption processes that are mandatory to supply the design of adsorbers. Investigation includes both conventional fixed-bed design and innovative moving bed design. The design and optimization of multiphase solid-liquid reactors are based on modeling and simulation analysis of adsorption processes, for both single-compound and multicomponent systems
  • Precious metals recovery - Adsorption process can be suitably adopted to separate substances from a liquid or a gas stream leaving them at trace levels that comply with regulations. However, the spent sorbent can be suitably treated to recover the adsorbed substances, especially when they are valuable by-products. The STPC-Lab is developing a new environmental friendly process for cost-effective recovery of Platinum Group Materials (PGMs) from catalytic converters and PC motherboards, able to recovery >99% of the PGMs. New activities are oriented toward the recovery of rare-earth materials.
  • GHG emission control - This research line aims at the development of high performance sorbents for the selective adsorption of CO2 from flue-gas deriving from both stationary (e.g. fossil-fueled power plants) and mobile (internal combustion engines vehicles) sources. The main activities focus on: i) production of K2CO3, Ca(OH)2 and ionic liquid-based sorbents supported onto different porous substrates (e.g. activated carbon, alumina); ii) CO2 adsorption tests in fixed-bed reactor under different operating conditions (i.e. temperature, gas composition, gas flow rate);  iii) regeneration tests of exhausted sorbents for CO2 recovery in concentrated form and sorbent re-use under multiple adsorption/desorption cycles; iv) modelling analysis of adsorption dynamics/thermodynamics in order to determine the adsorption mechanism and to evaluate kinetic/fluid-dynamic parameters for the adsorber scale-up. GHG emission control include the development of wet electrostatic scrubbing for soot particles removal. In particular, the wet electrostatic scrubbing proved to remove more than 95% of the Black Carbon particles of combustion flue gases, which are among the principal climate forcing agent emitted by anthropic sources.

More details are available on this website: http://www.dicmapi.unina.it/faculty/faculty-by-disciplines/name/francesco-di-natale

Partecipants

  • Amedeo Lancia (Full Professor – DICMAPI)
  • Francesco Di Natale (Assistant Professor, DICMAPI)
  • Roberto Nigro (Assistant Professor, DICMAPI)
  • Claudia Carotenuto (Assistant Professor, Univeristy of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”)