Air Pollution Control Posts

Chocolate chip cookies are one of my favorite treats. Butter, sugar, eggs, flour, vanilla, and, of course, chocolate chips. Combine the ingredients together and you get a delicious cookie. Somehow, using the same ingredients the cookies do not always turn out the same. Sometimes they are thinner and crispier. Other times, they are soft and chewy. After watching cooking shows, I have come to understand there are many factors that determine the final product. Conditions like freshness of ingredients, temperature of butter and cooking time can affect how your cookies turn out. Similarly, there are a wide range of conditions that may occur during the air pollution control application process that affect the recommended technology solution. 

In the 1970s a clothing store, SYMS Corporation, debuted a new slogan, "An educated consumer is our best customer." At Catalytic Products, we believe the same is true when it comes to air pollution control equipment. 

My new lawn requires a lot of maintenance - in a good way. It grows really fast and I need to mow the lawn at least once a week. After each use, I clean the mower off best I can and fill it with gas, as needed. Last week the mower felt "off" as I was trying to cut the grass. 

Memories are a funny thing. Walking into a bakery the other day sent me back in time. I thought of growing up in Chicago, walking to school on a beautiful Spring day, and experiencing the smells of all sorts of wonderful things as I got close to the local bakery. Every once in a while, I would stopped in and treated myself to a fresh chocolate chip and custard Danish, which of course I had to go to the bakery this morning to and get some (ok, two) so I could provide you with this delicious image: 

Did you know that the first crewed spacecraft to leave Earth's orbit, reach Earth's moon, orbit it, and return safely to Earth (Apollo 8) was launched into space using the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), which had a real time operating system which enabled the astronauts to enter simple commands to control the spacecraft? The AGC was introduced in 1966 with approximately 64KB of memory, and it operated at 0.043MHz and weighed in at a mere 70 pounds (think of a toaster with start/stop/defrost buttons that would require "Team Lift" stickers on the box) yet was able to guide astronauts from the Earth to the Moon and back. 

Spring has sprung; the sun is shining longer, flowers and trees are blooming, and the snow is gone (well, in most parts anyway). Plans are being made for summer vacations, graduations, weddings, and oxidizer maintenance. 

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are pre-cursors to Ozone pollution and subject to EPA regulations. Thermal and catalytic oxidizers are routinely used to destroy VOC emissions from a variety of industrial sources. 

At Catalytic Products International, we have a great staff of knowledgeable, dedicated professionals that provides quality air pollution control solutions to our customers, but we also work with a wide variety of partners to ensure that our clients have all the right equipment in place. In this installment of our series of Expert Interviews, we spoke with Skip Abbott, a sales rep for the New York Blower Company.

Fugitive emissions are what we call the uncontrolled release of gases into the atmosphere. This is something that happens regularly; in fact, fugitive emissions can be released when we fill our cars' gas tanks. The air that is displaced inside a gas tank that is being filled causes hydrocarbons in the form of gasoline vapor emissions to exit from the fill spout into the atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner. Some states seek to limit these fugitive emissions by requiring gas stations to use "Vapor Recovery" nozzles which capture this vapor and return it to the gas station's underground gasoline tanks, reducing the "loss" of gasoline and creating less air pollution.  

Fugitive emissions are the uncontrolled release of gases into the atmosphere. This is something that occurs regularly; in fact, it often happens when we fill our cars' gas tanks. The air being displaced inside the gas tank when it is being filled causes gasoline vapor emissions (hydrocarbons) to exit into the atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner. However, some states do require the use of "Vapor Recovery" nozzles to capture these vapor emissions and return them to the gas station's underground gasoline tanks, where the vapors become liquid again, reducing the "loss" of gasoline and creating less air pollution.