Odor Treatment

One of water treatment process in water supply is to omit the odor from the water, this odor come can be sourced from plant or animals spoil or can be categorized of organic matter, or can from chemical matter like Industrial Waste. Odor from organic matter in water contains can be omitted by such kind of adsorption or absorption substances, usually use active carbon that have ability to absorb gas from water or liquid contains.

Odor is a very complex matter to quantify and qualify. It varies from person to person what is considered smelly. A malodorous substance called mercaptane can be very pungent at extremely low concentrations of for example 5 ppb (parts per billion). Other bad odors such as H2S loose their smell at very high concentrations.

Odor control has long been a forgotten issue within the environmental concerns. Industrial production facilities have focused on reducing the quantity and improving the quality of their solid waste. Have cleaned up and remediate the factory's sites, have purified and recycled their waste water and commonly even reduced emissions to the ambient air. In many cases businesses have therefore complied with governmental and local laws and permits. For odor issues however the regulations are less clear. The only important factor has been the number of complaints the company receives from the locality.

With new residential areas built near to older industrial sites which used to be located on the outskirts of cities, citizens are increasingly being confronted with the malodors of manufacturing companies. Furthermore, whereas in the past the workers of the company were the only ones living in the neighborhood of the factory, nowadays with increasing mobility, the company's neighbor may not be his best friend. Moreover people have learned to stand up, confront and even sue local government and business if they believe health and comfort issues are at stake. It is therefore that odor control is becoming an important factor for every environmental officer and production manager.

Odor is one of the most difficult things to measure. As most samples of odorous air contain a cocktail of smelly substances with each different odor thresholds (limitation) it is nearly impossible to have an on-line analyzer or measuring system which can quantify and differentiate between these components. The standard method for measuring odors is the olfactory method. In a nutshell, samples of air are taken from the odorous source and are "measured" by a panel of people.